TOTAL COST.

Cane, 3,840 tons,@ $2 $7,680
Seed, 967 tons, @ $3 1,934
------- $9,614 00
Labor bill from August 15 to October 15,
including labor for department experiments 5,737 16
Coal, including all experiments 1,395 77
Salaries, etc. 3,500 00
Insurance, sundries, etc. 1,500 00
----------
Total $21,746 93
==========
Total value $34,476 50
Total cost 31,248 93
----------
Net $13,329 57
To be paid by the department 6,534 75
----------
Total profit for season’s work, 1887 $19,764 32

OUTLINE OF THE PROCESSES OF SORGHUM SUGAR MAKING.

As now developed, the processes of making sugar from sorghum are as follows: 

First, The topped cane is delivered at the factory by the farmers
who can grow it.

 Second, The cane is cut by a machine into pieces about one and a
 quarter inches long.

 Third, The leaves and sheaths are separated from the cut cane by
 fanning mills.

 Fourth, The cleaned cane is cut into fine bits called chips.

 Fifth, The chips are placed in iron tanks, and the sugar
 “diffused,” soaked out with hot water.

 Sixth, The juice obtained by diffusion has its acids nearly or
 quite neutralized with milk of lime, and is heated and skimmed.

 Seventh, The defecated or clarified juice is boiled to a
 semi-sirup in vacuum pans.

 Eighth, The semi-sirup is boiled “to grain” in a high vacuum in
 the “strike pan.”

 Ninth, The mixture of sugar and molasses from the strike pan is
 passed through a mixing machine into centrifugal machines which
 throw out the molasses and retain the sugar.

The process of the formation of sugar in the cane is not fully determined, but analyses of canes made at different stages of growth show that the sap of growing cane contains a soluble substance having a composition and giving reactions similar to starch.  As maturity approaches, grape sugar is also found in the juice.  A further advance toward maturity discloses cane sugar with the other substances, and at full maturity perfect canes contain much cane sugar and little grape sugar and starchy matter.

In sweet fruits the change from grape sugar to cane sugar does not take place, or takes place but sparingly.  The grape sugar is very sweet, however.

Cane sugar, called also sucrose or crystallizable sugar, when in dilute solution is changed very readily into grape sugar or glucose, a substance which is much more difficult than cane sugar to crystallize.  This change, called inversion, takes place in over-ripe canes.  It sets in very soon after cutting in any cane during warm weather; it occurs in cane which has been injured by blowing down, or by insects, or by frost, and it probably occurs in cane which takes a second growth after nearly or quite reaching maturity.