The World’s Sugar Supply.
The world’s production of sugar amounts to nearly seventeen million tons, practically one half of which is derived from the beet root, the greater percentage of which is produced in Europe. Now that the ravages of war have devastated many of the better beet-sugar regions of Europe a greater demand will be made on the more fortunate sugar countries as soon as the present supply of storage sugar is exhausted and trade resumes its normal condition.
Progress in Sugar Manufacture.
The past few years have shown great progress in the method of sugar making. It used to be thought that a high grade of sugar could be made only by the use of the bone-black or animal-char process.
The beet-sugar producers were the first to diverge from this method and succeeded in making a perfectly satisfactory sugar in their factories in one continuous process by the aid of the carbonitation system.
Louisiana had been making a fairly good sugar known as yellow clarified for a number of years, but the great step in improvements along these lines was brought about by the acid-thin-juice process of Java. This was a combination of the carbonitation and sulphitation processes which gave a satisfactory sugar, though unfortunately the yield of resulting molasses was also quite high.
The latest improvement in this work was the introduction of the “Battille Process” which has certain similarities to the Steffens process of beet-sugar manufacture. This method has given an excellent grade of sugar and the maximum rendement since practically all of the sugar is extracted in crystalized form.