The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-07-31
MOlasses to Burn.

There are 25, 900, 900 gallons Of mo-
lasses stored in tanks on the various
sugar plantations throughout the State
that is an elephant on the sugar plant
ers' hands. They do not know what
to do with it. They cannot sell it,
for any profit in sight would be eaten
up in transportation. Besides, it
would require cool half million dol
lars to barrel it, and putting this sum
and the freight charges together, when
the present price of molasses is taken
into consideration, the shipper would
find that he would be out of pocket
after his labor as concluded.
The question of what disposition to
make of this molasses is knotty one
to the sugar planters, and at the last
two meetings of their association no
other subject has been discussed.
The planters say that it is problem
that has to be solved, for before the
next crop is taken off, this surplus
molasses has to be got rid Of in order
to make room for the new crop. Here
tofore, the stuff has been dumped into
the river or swamps. In the latter
method it has been found that the
molasses sours and makes life disa-
greeable to those living five miles
away, while in dumping it into the
river or streams, people living on the
banks complain of it as nuisance.
1t is being fed to stock. but from
statistics there is not enough stock by
one-third on the various plantations to
consume it. Suggestions have been
made to distill it into alcohol, but the
planters find that it would require
such an outlay of money to erect a
distillery to distill fine alcohol so as
to compete with the worlds markets,
that it would not pay. 1t has also
been suggested that as molasses is e1.
cellent stock food that it be shipped
to central distributing points where
stock is raised in large numbers
Texas, for instance-by the means of
tank cars. This suggestion has met
with some favor, and some day the
experiment may be tried.
The only solution, however, in sight
seems to be to the discovery of some
way in which the molasses can be
burned as fuel. When his problem is
solved the planters believe that mo-
lasses will then be valuable. Expert
ments have been tried in burning mo-
lasses. What the planters want is an
invention which will successfully
allow molasses to enter the furnace in
such a manner that it will turn rapid
ly, will not gum the carrier, and, in
fact, do it's duty without injuring the
furnace in any respect. There is
fortune in sight for the man who works
out this inver. r.tion. A system of
spraying the molasses on the bagasse
as it goes along with the carrier to the
furnace is, from all accounts, the only
system that will suffice.
At last week meeting of the Sugar
Planters Association, W. Q. Coleman,
a practical engineer, made sugges-
tion as to one good use molasses could
be put to. He said that while in
Texas, at a point near Houston, he
built a number of furnaces. In one
he experimental with various stuffs
furnaces are made of. He tried asbes-
tos, fire clay, and solution consisting
Of eohithen red clay, molasses aud salt
water. After time he found both
the asbestos and the fire clay peeling
off from the intense heat, but the clay
mixed with molasses was as intact as
the day it was first plastured in. In
making this solution he used one-half
gallon Of molasses to one bushel of
clay, with salt water to soften to the
proper degree.