It will be remembered that in the synthesis of sucrose, which consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, there are none of the plant-food elements used which are sought for in commercial fertilizers. These are used only in building the fibrous stalk of the cane and they may all be recovered in the bagasse and cane-juice impurities. The carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which are used practically all come from the air and water.
It is a custom to-day to cart this ash to piles or depressions some distance from the factory. In some places it is thrown into the river, or cast into the sea—an absolute loss.
Planters must not depend upon commercial fertilizers for their supply of plant-food material, when there is such an abundance of natural fertilizer being wasted. The cost of the artificial fertilizers in many cases is considered prohibitive and often unnecessary. In order to build up a great sugar industry here, the material at hand must be used, while money should be spent for modern apparatus and equipment.
Molasses.
The dark-colored viscous substance remaining after the large crystals of sucrose have been removed is called molasses. This contains small crystals of sucrose, which has passed through the perforations of the centrifugal screens, sucrose in solution, glucose, fructose, and other organic substances, such as pectin bodies, albumenoids, coloring substances, etc., besides the inorganic matter constituting the ash upon incineration of the molasses.
The composition of the molasses varies with the working of each factory, also with the condition of cane, time of harvest, etc. The juice from green cane and that which has reached ultramaturity will contain a higher percentage of invert sugar and organic non-sugars than a properly matured cane. Then factories that have ample boiling-house provision, and crystallizers as well as magma tanks, will be able to send out a molasses with lower purity, thus recovering more of the crystallizable sugar.
In any case there will be some molasses produced, and this constitutes a valuable sugar-house by-product, if properly cared for. It may be disposed of in one of several forms, namely, as a human food, a stock feed, a source of alcohol, factory fuel, and a fertilizer.
Cane molasses as a human food.—For many years low-grade cane molasses has been used as a human food in the United States. It was originally sold under the name of New Orleans molasses, but in recent years a number of companies have employed clarifying and bleaching agents and thus turned out a very fancy article, under various trade names, for baking purposes. With the boiling at low temperatures practiced to-day, there is little or no caramel formed during this work, and consequently it is only necessary to clarify and bleach the organic non-sugars, in order to make a salable molasses. The bleaching is usually accomplished by the use of a hydrosulphite, either in the form of sodium or calcium, but sometimes only the sulphurous acid gas is used.
The bleaching effect of none of these reagents is permanent, especially when the product is exposed to the air and light. Such chemicals must therefore be used with great caution, and as late in the process as possible. Care must be exercised too that an excessive amount is not employed, since an undesirable tint is liable to result as well as an excessive amount of the sulphites to be admitted, which is not permitted by the Pure-Food Law. It is astonishing how much of this low-grade molasses is thus manufactured and used in the United States for cooking purposes, and what a high price this product commands.