Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1893 — BEET SUGAR MAKING. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BEET SUGAR MAKING.

HOW SWEETNESS IS STOLEN FROM SUNBEAMS. B«et« Furnish 60 Per Cent, of All the Difference in Taste—Extent of the Industry in This Country—Converting: the Raw Material Into Fine Table Sugar. * Process of Manufacture.

In a recent number of the Cosmopolitan, H. S. Adams has an excellent article on beet-sugar making. The writer says that while the average person, if asked to name the origin of his sugarbowl, would respond, “Sugar-cane, of course, ” this juicy reed and all other sources combined, save ono, supply only about 40 per cent, of the world’s product; the remaining and larger portion has been stolen from sunbeams, drawn through the veins of myriads and myriads of leaves and stored up in the tapering roots of one of the most unassuming members of the vegetable world—t h e beet; a plant that hides its light under a bushel, that even in culinary art comes to the front only as spring-salad and boi le d beets—in short, a dweller in tilled fields of which

but little might be expected. Yet the whole world is under lasting obligations to this erstwhile gardentruck for its abundant liberality In supplying what has come to be considered one of the prime necessities of life. Tell this same person that he

Is eating beet sugar, wholly or in part, laugh at you, because he labors under the delusion that as compared to sugar, i. e., cane sugar, it is as to butter —in other words, a substitute of inferior quality, for of cjhirse he oould tell beet sugar if he saw it. The fact is, however, that there is no difference at all, except in name. Sucrose, or crystalllzable sugar, is identically the same, whether extracted from cane, sorghum, maple trees or beet-roots, and those people who claim, on sampling the product of the latter, that they can.

dlstinguisa “a vegetable taßte,” are giving too much credit to their ' tongue and too little to their iraaglna- . tloQ. Europe floods us with It in a raw state; it reaches the great Eastern refineries, where also comes raw sugar from the cane countries. These two af&iaceparably combined, and the mixture goes forth as refined sugar, far and near; and refined sugar it is, nothing more-nor less. Nothing is distinguished, "AB-there is nothing to distinguish; so it must not be thought for a moment that there Is any sailing under false colors. Only this—that honor should be given where honor is due. TJp to the present time the 'Ane has received in the popular mind the credit of being the original source of all this product; but

tew that the sugar beet is struggling for supremacy In American soil, its part in sweetening the werid’s coffee can no longer remain unacknowledged. The amelioratioh of the sugar-beet is • business in itself and would reguile a - yjgHii to discuss thoroughly. In ffei* country it is aayst quite undevelnut/tn in Europe"* has very long been mriW out on the most scientific and elaborate seals. Having secured a seed that bids fair to produce a large yield

of sugar, the grains, which resemble ordinary beet seeds in size and also in point of containing severs germs, are plants* as soon after the first week in April as the weather will permit, quite thickly, in rows eighteen inches apart, the soil, which must be of the best, having been plowed at least a foot in depth

to allow the tap-roots to penetrate as far as they wish, otherwise a deformed beet would result or the top appear above ground arid thereby accumulate an undesirable amount of salts. The roots should be of as perfect shape as possible, the best type being a long tapering form with a marked twist, resembling that of a cork screw. When the young plants show four leaves, they must be thinned out Immediately, one being left every six inches or so. After repeated cultivation the weeds will have disappeared and the broad leaves spread over the ground. The crop must then be “laid by,”-it being very essential that the foliage remain unbroken so that the full complement may be in readiness to aDsorb the sugar that the sun showers down in reckless munificence. From now on each moment that they are basking in solar splendor the honeyed substance is mingling with the arterial fluid, and flowing on, seeks the subterranean storehouses. When sufficiently ripe they must be topped and carried to the factory as soon as possible. Arrived at the factory, the wagon or car loads are weighed, tared, and as soon as a sample basket for analysis has been selected, the roots are stored In sheds constructed for that purpose. The latter are V-shaped and connect with the sugar-house by means of conduits through which a moderate flow of water carries the beets Into these they tumble hour after hour, day in and day out, almost incessantly, for a beetsugar mill must never flag during its necessarily short season—sav one hundred days’ run each year. The hapless beets are borne along to their doom

like so many hogs to a Chicago slaugh-ter-house; on, on they go, in mad confusion, as they are driven down the length of the canals; through the factory wall they pass, are caught by a wheel and hurried without ceremony into a huge gutter, where revolving arms speed them along, and—minus stones, dirt, etc.— delivers them to a spiral, which in turn carries them to the washer proper. This is an immense barrel, with sides perforated, in which they are wh rled round and round until they disappear beyond the farther edge, only to reappear bob-

bing along over a set of great whalebone brushes; then, with the last vestige of dirt removed, they leave the washhouse and enter the factory proper. Without a moment’s rest they are caught in the buckets of an elevator and taken to the top of the house, where they fall pell-mell into the receiver of an automatic scale. When this is full it holds 1,100 pounds. It registers the number of the weighing and then precipitates its bulky load into the sllcer. A hand on the lever, and the great mass sinks like melting snow, until, after the lapse of several moments, nothing is left but a few chips dancing and coquetting with the swiftly rotating blades on the bottom of the receptacle. The beot-root, being composed of

concentric rings, each full of tiny cells, in which are stored the solution of sugar and other matter, it is necessary in slicing to rupture as many of these vessels as possible. To this end the knives used are serrated send produce narrow slices, which we call “eossettee” for lack of an English name. As these leave the elicer they glidA down a movable feeder which supplies the diffusion battery below. The !»ttei consists of a circular arrangement of fourteen

large cells, within whose walls the juice I is extracted by what is known as the diffusion process—in other words, the withdrawal of it by soaking in water. Briefly, a current of warm water is turned on the oontents of No. 1; thii circulates through the mass of cossettes, passes out by means of a false bottom into a pipe which enters the top of No 2, the mixture of juioe and water being forced along by a flow of cold water which follows it constantly. Th« temperature of the former ii maintained by steam-chambers attached to each cell. The same process continues with the other vate until No. 12 is reached, when the circuit is ended, as one cell must be filling all the time and an empty one stands ready always to take its place. No. lis then emptied by removing the bottom, the wet mass being carried to presses, where the surplus moisture is removed, the pulp going out of doors to be used as fodder. No. 2 then becomes first in a new circuit, and so on, the cossettes in each cell receiving twelve saturations. After making the round, the fluid, which on exposure to the air has become a deep purple oolor, is conveyed to a measuring-tank near-by, from which it flows to a mixer, where it ie defecated with lime and then pumped into a huge carbonation tank in which the lime and whatever foreign matter it may take with it are rendered insoluble, by means of carbonic-acid gas forced through it. Now the carbonated juice is pumped to the filter-press room, where, by means of an elaborate series of frames, hung with heavy cloths, it is filtered and becomes a transparent fluid of a pale-yellow hue. The lime thus re-

lieved possesses about the same consistency as putty, and is conveyed at once into the yard, to be used the following season as a mild fertilizer. The process of mixing, carbonation. and filtration is then repeated with a second set of machinery, less lime being used this time. This finished, the juice is treated with sulphur fumes, filtered by means of mechanical filters (bags being used instead of folded cloths), passing into the quadruple effect, four great boilers in which the larger part of the water contained in it is evaporated by the u'se of steam. With a repetition of the sulphur treatment and mechanical filtration the chemical part of the manufacture ceases, and the liquid, now called “thick juice," is ready for crystallization. This syrup is boiled in the vacuumpan, a receptacle containing a copper coil heated by steam, until the proper crystals are obtained, which, with the uncrystallized sugar,, forms the “masse cuite," an unprepossessing mixture, which the centrifugals are able to render into white sugar in the brief space of a few minutes. These machines make about a thousand revolutions a minute, the centrifugal force driving the molasses through the porous wails of the receiver, leaving a solid layer of crystals clinging to the side. After being sprayed with water, the damp sugar is released and conveyed to the drier, an immense tumbler whose heated walls remove all moisture. It gradually works to the other end, the crystals falling like spray from a mountain Waterfall as they make their rough journey, and, arriving there, drop through various-sized sieves into chutes under which yawn the open mouths of sacks. These are filled, and the sugar is ready for the market. The entire process of converting the raw material into the finest grade of table sugar has thus gone on under the same roof, and the beets which were yesterday in the farmer’s wagon are to-day sacked and branded “extra fine” and loaded in cars for shipment. Not all beet-sugar factories refine their product, but In America It Is a d stinct advantage, partly because of their remoteness from the great refineries and partly from commercial reasons. There are now in this country six plants, the locations being Alvarado) Watsonville, and Chino, in California; jGrand Island and Norfolk, in Nebraska; and Lehi in Utah; the last four of which were established in 1890 and 1891. All have been able thus far to cope with the disadvantages that lie in the path of the industry in the way of the solution of the agricultural problem, and the business may be said to have gained already a strong foothold.

When it is considered that more than half a thousand of such factories, each costing several hundred thousand dollars, would be required to supply the sugar that we consume annually, it is not difficult to see that millions of dollars now sent abroad year after year would be retained here, to say nothing of the labor afforded to thousands of workmen, the advantage to a community of possessing a factory that U9es raw material whose production is a benefit to the immediate neighborhood, and last, but not least, the improvement in general agriculture that must necessarily result from the pursuit of the very careful methods required in the culture of sugar-beet. But though still in Its infancy in America, the manufacture of beet sugar Is not a new departure for ue; It is only Its success that is recent. The long list of failures dates back as far as 1830, which is about the time tnat it was placed on a permanent footing in France, and for nearly half a century its pathway was strewn with wrecks. Eight years later an attempt was made at Northfleld, Mass., the experiment of drying the beet being tried, but the endeavor was unrewarded with success. Two decades and a half then passed before any move toward reviving the industry was made, when a plant was located at Chatsworth, 111. It managed to struggle along several years, but finally went to the wall. It was moved to Freeport, and later to Black Hawk, Wis., with only failures as the result At last it found Itself in Fond du Lac, in the same State. Here its establishment was attended with a measure of success, but the enterprise being hampered by Insufficient capital, and the opportunity occurring to increase the latter, it was once more removed, this time to Alvarado, Cal. Again disaster, and Soquels was chosen for a site, but after a time abandoned. Then the factory at Alvarado was revived and a success. which continues to this date, was reached. Later on, the plant at Watsonville was erected. , There is a vast belt stretching from >the Atlantic to the Pacific, and of no which invites the culture of the sngafcjieet and promises success almost from the start, if experiments thus far made can be relied upop. Soli and climate are there; careful culture will come when farmers realize that the brain must be used in tillage. As for sunbeams, the great illuminator is not chary of them.

THE “DIFFUSION” BATTERY.

VIEW INSIDE OF THE BEET SUGAR WORKS.

THINNING OUT THE PLANTS.

BEET SUGAR WORKS AT NORFOLK, NEB.

SUGAR BEETS.