Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-02-11

sugar in the cane, if the sugar could be
extracted as completely as is now pos
sible with beets, would yield 243 pounds
of sugar, and would show a loss of but
one per cent. 1t is not at all impossible
that such extraction of sorghum sugar
may soon be made. and with the i'm
provement which is possible in the sor-
ghum plant, by selection of seed it is
not rash to expect that when the sor-
ghum industry has improved the varie
ties. has perfected its processes, and its
apparatus, and when experience has
given skill and economy in manufac
tnre, eight tons of cane will produce
one ton of commercial sugar.
The alcohol process appears to be
step in the direction of increased ex-
traction. Itappears to preeipitate
gum which is hindrance to crystalliz-
alton. And it is hoped the process
may be practically developed in
time to enable the sorghum factories to
avail themselves of the increased WELD
of sugar which it may give in the next
campaign.
The following ruling of the Office of
internal revenue, in reference to the
alcohol required in using the process.
will be of interest to sugar max ers:
TREASURY DEPARTMENT..
Office of Internal Revenue.
Washington. ID. c., January IS. 1891.
F. Hanna & Co., Sterling, Kas.: Gentlemen
Your letter of the 9Th inst, has been received,
stating that as sorghum manufacturers, you
wish to purchase tay-paid alcohol and to use
it to precipitate the gummy substance from
sorghum syrup, and then TO recover the alco-
hol by distillation, to use it again on fresh
material.
There is no objection, under the internal rev.
enue laws of the United States, to your buying
tax-paid alcohol and using it for the purpose
to which you refer. But in order that without
violation of these laws, you may recover by
distillation the alcohol thus used, you make re-
turn in due form to the collector, and pay spe-
cal tax as rectifiers, under the third subdi-
vision of sec. 3244, r. S.
If. as will probably be the case the whole
quantity of alcohol thus purified by you is less
than 500 barrels a year, counting forty gallons
of proof spirits to the barrel. your special tax
for any one special tax is $780, [Sec. 4, Act
sec. 3244, r. 81
If, however, you find it practicable and con-
venient to do so, there is no objection under
the law and regulations to your keeping the
refuse alcohol (the alcohol which you have
once used until about the close of the year
and then recovering it by distillation, paying
special tax as rectifier reckoned from the first
day of the month in which you begin such rec
LITIGATION to the first day of May following (af-
ter this year. to the first day OF July following,
the date when the special TAX year is to begin,
under the act of Oct. l, 1890.
Under the statutes, if you do not begin recti-
flying in the first month of the special tax
year, you are not required to pay special tax
as rectifers for the whole year.
Ifyou should postpone recovering any of
your alcohol until the last month of any speci-
al tax year, and then, making return to the
collector, paying the tax and taking out the
requisite special tax stamp, recover the entire
quantity of your accumulated, once used, al
cohol before the expiration of that month, the
amount of your special tax for that year will
be only $3.50 Respectfully yours,
JOHN MASON, Commissioner"