Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-03-05
SUGAR CANE
IT'S CONVERSION INTO sUoAH
IN CUBA

IN CUBA
Grinding the Cane and Drawing or
the Liquor Treating the Cane
Juice Until It Becomes Sugar.
The first sugar plantation in Cuba was
established about hundred years after
the discovery of the island. For three
centuries the chief industry of the island
has been the cultivation Of cane and Its
conversion into sugar. For long period
the processes of manufacture were crude,
inexpensive and wasteful, oxen being
employed in grinding cane, and the ma
chinery being of the toughest and SIM
plest design. 1t is no longer either prac-
ticable or profitable to raise cane and
make sugar on a small scale. Steam
has taken the place of OK and mule, not
only in the grinding mills, but to large
extent in the fields. At Soledad the
cane is carried to the works by long
trains running on narrow gauge railways
through the estate. 1t is unloaded from
the cars by negroes and thrown upon
broad carrier travelling up long incline
to the rollers of the first mill. AS many
as fifteen mon are employed in handling
this moving mass of cane. When it
reaches the first mill it is ground by roll
lers weighing fifteen tons and set close
together. The cane is broken up and
about 60 per cent. of the liquor which it
contains is drawn off underneath the
mill. Under the old process there was
only one grinding, and much OF the
liquor was wasted. Now the cane Is
ground twice and an additional 10 per
cent. of the juice is obtained. Streams
of liquor from the watts of the two mills
unite and pass through strainer, one
workman being employed in raking oil
floating refuse and preventing obstruc-
tons. The liquor is then ready to be
pumped into the boiling works.
The refuse of the cane after the two
grindings is the only fuel used in the
works. 1t is carried by moving conduc-
tors to the furnaces and dumped auto
matically, being dried by the intense
heat and consumed as rapidly as it is fed.
Wood was used as fuel when the steam
engine was introduced in sugar works,
and subsequently bagasse, or refuse cane,
was put with it. Boilers have been in
vented to facilitate the employment Of
bagasse as fuel Ordinarily, when the
furnaces are fed with bagasse, force Of
eighty laborers is constantly occupied in
transferring it from the mills to the
boiler house. At Soledad two men do
the work of eighty; or, to speak more
accurately, the automatic action of the
mechanical conductors dispense with the
labor of seventy eight men. Indeed, a
close approach is made here to the solu-
ton of the old problem of perpetual mo-
ton. The cane, when fed to the con-
ductors. serves to keep all the complex
machinery of the works in operation;
the broken and crushed fragments Of
bagasse are carried to the furnaces and
furnish the power by which not only the
grinding, but also the pumping and
boiling are done; all that is not juice,
but sheer waste, goes into the produc-
ton of force by which the mills are kept
grinding and the liquor clarified, boiled
and crystallized into sugar.
From the grinding mill the cane-juice
is pumped into defficators, or large tanks
in the upper story of the boiling works.
In these tanks it is treated with lime,
which neutralizes the acid. The albu-
men coagulates when cracked by steam
and brought to the boiling point. From
the defficators the liquor is pumped INTO
the first of three great boilers, or vacuum
pans. In order that boiling may take
| place at low temperatures the air in the
pans is exhausted by steam pumps. In
| the first boiler the temperature is 200
degrees, in the second 1870 degrees and
in the third 100 degrees, with cores
the boiling liquor being an agency in the
80 L. H. 49,. l..
effect of boiling. The liquor is boiled
to syrup containing SO per cenc. Of
sugar. The sugar crystaliizes in two
large strike-pans, where the most deli
cate work OF the factory is done. The
most expert operatives. are in charge Of
the strike-pans, from which the contents
are constantly sampled and tested in the
laboratory, conducted here by most in.
telligent American, J. G. Lumelius The
sugar is rapidly cooled and carried into
series of centrifugators. In these the
sugar is separated from the molasses by
the centrifugating process. As the con,
tents revolve about the centre, the sugar
gradually begins to whiten and the
molasses is expelled through holes in the
sides. When the process is completed
So per cent. is sugar and 10 per cent.
molasses as the result of two boilings.
The sugar is collected by machinery,
carried to the bagging and weighing
rooms, and transported by railroad and
steam lighter to the wharves Of Glen
fuegos for shipment to New York.
The works are in operation at Soledad
day and night from December to May,
and are then closed until the next grind
ing season. This is the period when tho
cane is ripe, and when the juice must be
expressed with the least possible delay.
Cane that is left too long in the field de-
teriorates in quality and yields less
juices. The cane bears one crop year,
and stands for twelve years. Il New York
New Found Dwarfa.