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syrup, the amount of fuel is diminished, and many other economies can be introduced which, together, insure the production of a much better and cheaper article than can be produced upon the domestic system.

In regions where the cane is grown in small patches, widely separated from each other, it can only be worked up upon the domestic system, which can, of course, yield nothing but very uncertain results. On both the factory and domestic systems it is a great advantage to run both day and night during the sugar season. One thousand gallons can be made with the same apparatus in twenty-for hours, as easily as four hundred gallons could be made in twelve hours.

Where these factories work up cane for the farmers upon shares the pro. portion is invariably one-half throughout the whole western country, but ' where a money charge is made, the differences in price are very great.

At Buckley, in Illinois, the farmer carried his cane to the factory, and received twenty cents for every gallon of syrup that was made from it. Mr. S. B. Pomeroy, of Sycamore, Ill., charged twenty cents a gallon for making syrup when 10 gallons of juice would make one of syrup; twenty-five cents when 15 gallons of juice made one of syrup; when twenty gallons of juice were required for one of syrup his charge was thirty cents. He refuses to work any juice that is weaker than this. Mr. Amos Smith, of Loda, charges twenty-five cents a gallon; Mr. Wm. Edgerton, of Spiceland, Ind., charges twenty cents per gallon. In some places it is made for fifteen cents a gallon. The charge made by manfacturers, therefore, varies between fifteen and thirty cents, though twenty cents is the more common charge.

The estimates of the actual cost of syrup-making are as various as the prices actually charged.

The sugar boiling establishments on the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, generally use Mr. Brainerd's apparatus, and run day and night. Some of these establishments estimate the actual cost of making syrup at 40° Beaume, when the cane is delivered at their doors, at five cents a gallon. One of them assured me that their books showed the actual cost to be two and a half cents a gallon, but the greater number gave the actual cost at three cents. William Edgerton says his accounts for four years, show the actual cost of making syrup to be ten cents per gallon; E. S. Ricker gives the same figures as Mr. Edgerton. A few farmers in Ohio estimated the cost as low as six cents; others, as high as fifteen cents, but the great majority of the sugar makers in Ohio and Indiana, agreed with Messrs. Edgerton and Ricker, that ten cents would cover all the expenses of converting the cane into syrup at 40° Beaume.

I did not find a single man in Illinois, except Mr. O. N. Brainerd, who had ever attempted to ascertain experimentally, the amount of fuel required to reduce a given amount of syrup.

In that State the mills are almost universally operated by a steam engine. I believe there are many horse mills in operation, but I only saw two in the whole State. A large proportion of these establishments put up corn shelling machines after their sugar business is over, and shell the corn of the neighboring farmers for hire. The cobs are reserved for fuel, and are abundantly sufficient to run the engines and supply the evaporating pans during the whole of the ensuing sugar season. They do not, therefore,

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make any charge for fuel in their estimate of the cost, which accounts for the low estimate of three cents a gallon. They make one thousand gallons in 24 hours, and employ on an average, seven hands in each watch.

I was unable to obtain reliable statements respecting fuel from the great body of farmers in Ohio and Indiana. The few that I did procure are given in the following table:

O. N. Brainerd uses 1 cord of wood in making 200 gallons of syrup.

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In the best Cornish engines, 1 lb. of coal evaporates 10 lbs. of water. The average evaporation in well-contrived steam boilers throughout the country is 5 lbs. of water for 1 of coal. At this latter rate, when 10 gallons of juice will make one of syrup, it will require 1,440 lbs. of coal to nrake one hundred gallons of syrup.

CONSTRUCTION OF SUGAR HOUSES.

Mr. Isaac A. Hedges, who has put up more sugar works for making syrup on a large scale than almost any other man in the Western States, follows very nearly the arrangements adopted in the West Indies and in Louisiana. Below I give a plan of an establishment on his system, taken from his work entitled, "Sorgo, or the Northern Sugar Plant." (See fig. 4.)

The engine (c) is seen upon the left hand, with the gearing which connects it with the crushing mill, E. The endless apron, T, receives the cane from the ricks, the foremost rows of which are seen upon the right and left of it, running at right angles with it. This apron conveys the cane to the mill, E; the juice falls into a cistern beneath it, and the begasse is carried forward on the apron, V, to the begasse burner, B. The juice is elevated to the main reservoir, A, by a pump, as shown in the figure, from the sunken cistern, which received it from the mill. The reservoir, A, "should be competent to hold enough to serve for several hours run; and in order to guard against a deficiency in case of accident to the mill, it may be found better to always have some few hundred gallons on hand, as it is not only wasteful to dampen out fires, but destructive to a furnace. Hence, if a mill has, as it should always have, an extra capacity over the evaporating department, there will be no difficulty of keeping juice enough ahead to allow the mill to stop for any little repair or change that is quite liable "There is another condition that may demand this feature. I found it much more convenient to boil at night than to grind; therefore I required a mill of extra capacity, and a spacious reservoir, to contain a considerable stock ahead. The damage sustained by retaining juice on hand for a few hours is more than compensated for in the above considerations. But there is still another quite as important; that is, in each instance of stopping and starting there is invariably considerable loss both in quantity and quality of syrup or sugar made."

to occur.

The two tempering tanks, G, receive the juice from A, through two large

gates opening into them. In these are introduced such neutralizing or defecating agents as may be deemed necessary. The juice is received by means of pipes, laid for the purpose from the tempering tanks into the pan, H, twenty-five feet long, three feet wide and fourteen inches deep, made of sheet iron, three-sixteenths of an inch thick on the bottom, and one-sixteenth of an inch at the sides. The fire is introduced under the end (h); the opposite is sloped, to facilitate the removal of the scum which accumulates at that end. The opposite end (h) is set one inch the lowest, and is furnished with a gate through which the syrup is discharged. This pan is covered by wooden lids, opening on hinges. The flue of this pan opens like that of the steam boiler into the chimney, I. The operator, with a wooden scraper, draws the scum up the sloping end into the cross trough that conveys it to the covered tank, J. The capacity of this tank should be about two hundred gallons for an establishment that makes one thousand gallons of syrup in twenty-four hours. It should be racked off every ten hours, when about 60 per cent. of good clear juice may be returned to the pan, and the remainder used for making vinegar. S is a wooden chimney for carrying off the steam.

When the juice has attained to a density of about 189, B, it is conveyed to a setting tank, K, holding from 400 to 600 gallons and covered with wooden lids. This pan, like the first, must be of heavy sheet iron enclosed in a wooden box to prevent radiation. The settlings from the pan K are to be drawn off into a tank about four feet deep which stands at one end of it, but is not shown in the figure. To this sediment an equal quantity of hot water is added, which, when well stirred, is allowed to settle for a few hours. A large proportion of the saccharine matter can then be drawn off from the top after having first removed the scum. "In this and the two scum tanks, enough syrup can be saved to pay the wages of five men, and if made altogether in one batch, even if of inferior quality, it will justify, as there will be a demand for a cheap article."

The next pan is called the "strike," and is marked M, and is sufficiently distant from the pan K to allow the workmen to pass to and fro during the working hours.

"The dimensions of this, like the preceding parts of the apparatus, will depend upon the extent of the business to be done. The strike that I have used the past two seasons, consists of one hundred and eight feet of one and three-quarter inch (external diameter) brass tubing, connected with brass return-bands. The space between the pipes is one and a half inches. The steam entering at the head of the pan, and crossing back and forth until it reaches the foot, its greatest effect is produced at the entrance, which, like the fire pan, causes the greater ebullition at that end, and thus drifts whatever of scum there may rise to the sloping end, where the workman stands to remove it.

In operating, the steam can be let on as soon as enough has been let in from the prop to cover the pipes; and a moderate supply of steam until the first scum is removed; then the steam should be increased, and a supply of 'cero,' from the prop, about equal to the evaporation, until enough is received to make a batch of the desired quantity, say thirty, forty or more, gallons. Then the inlet is closed, and the batch well tested, to see that it

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