The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1913-03-22
VOX POPULI.
JUDGE PORTER TALKS
SUGAR CANE AND POLITICS

Editor Pensacola. Journal.
In your Monday morning (10th) is
sue we read a short editorial under
the heading, "Growing Sugar Cane In
Florida" The Journal has ever been
a friend of sugar cane cultivation, and
has at long intervals given it some
good words, but the unparalleled boom
Of the Deep Water City seems TO have
absorbed al the money, and interest
In outside enterprises.
The matter of what was done by the
Jesuit Priests four hundred years
ago. is ancient history, and is of little
information to prospective farmers or
manufacturers of today.
The writer has given facts and fg-
ures to The Journal heretofore, and
has perhaps earned the name OF
Crank on Sugar Cane But "the
proof of the pudding is the eating"
and Grand Ridge. and this section, has
led all Of West Florida in this in
dustry for the past twenty years, and
we may therefore challenge the right
to speak. and be heard.
In twenty (2o) samples of sugar
cane grown I'm this vicinity, In these
past years, part of which was analysed
at Audubon Park, New Orleans, and the
last four samples at Washington, D.
c. under the Immediate supervision OF
Chief Chemist Wylie.
These twenty samples quite uni
form.y gave a sucrose, DR. sugar con-
tent, OF is per cent uu-kp 1884 per
cent and glucose content of slightly
over one per cent, and eighty seven
and one-half (s71-2) per cent OF
purity.
Such cane-as stated by said chem
ists-wou1d produce two hundred (200)
pounds OF sugar per short ton $4,000
pounds) Of cane. and-as stated by
said chemist-"was not surpassed in
purity, and sugar content, by any part
of the world, and only equalled by the
best Of Cuba"
There is now no IA Glory making
sugar IN Florida, and no one is yet
available, or needed, as such cane
makes a syrup Of the finest flavor, and
texture that is, or can be, produced
anywhere and, up to this writing,
pays even the small farmer, with his
crude horse-p power crusher better than
any cane grown of Louisiana can
realize by selling his heavy tonnage
at the best price paid for cane. AT the
largest factories making sugar.
The man or company who builds
steam crusher, and cooker, sufficient
to grind one hundred acres, and makes
and sells his syrup at forty (40c) cents
per gallon, exclusive of cost Of crates
and cans, will pay almost double per
ton of cane than Louisiana factories
realize at present prices of centrifugal
sugar.
1t Is simply absurd to write, or talk.
OF putting UP modern sized and
equipped 'scentral centrifugal sugar
factory (not refinery until twenty to
fifty times the sugarcane is grown,
that is now grown in all Of West
Florida.
At the close of the civil war, or
rather up until the close OF the Cleve-
land administration. a factory grind
ing more than four hundred (400)
short tons in day and night run,
was called pretty good. But no fac
tory is now being conceived by our
ma nufacture, for this, or any other
sugar county. to grind less than twelve
hundred (120o1 tons in a day and
nights run. And even now with the
prospect of reduced prices on sugar.
because of free sugar" or a great re-
dJIction in the tariff protection on inn
ported sugar, the largest growers Of
cane, and manufactures OF sugar in
Louisiana, are planning a great cor
poration of sixty million ESQ 000, 100000
dollars as a holding company to
take over all the sugar houses in the
state, and operate some and dismantel
others with q view to meet the con-