WHAT SUGAR IS
Among the many varieties of sugar the most important are the sucroses and the glucoses. They form a natural group of substances, chiefly of vegetable origin. Chemically considered, all sugars are carbohydrates, that is to say, bodies composed of three elements: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Sucrose contains twelve atoms of carbon, twenty-two atoms of hydrogen and eleven atoms of oxygen.
Apart from sucrose, which is usually cane and beet sugar, the variety most generally met with is dextrose—one of the glucoses. It possesses less sweetness than sucrose and differs from the latter in chemical composition. As an example: dextrose is found in the raisin in small grains. It also occurs in other fruits and is the result of the inversion of sucrose.
Glucose enters largely into the manufacture of candy, being particularly necessary in the preparation of soft filling for creams, as a certain amount of it added to cane-sugar syrup prevents crystallization.
Sucrose is derived from sugar cane, maple sap, sorghum and the sugar beet. It is a solid, crystallizing in the form of monoclinic prisms, generally with hemihedral faces, which are colorless, transparent, have a sweet taste, a specific gravity of 1.6 and a melting point of about 320 degrees Fahrenheit. It is soluble in about one-half its weight in cold water, and in boiling water in almost all proportions. It is practically insoluble in alcohol, turpentine, ether, chloroform and similar fluids.
The crop of 1914-15 showed a world’s production of 18,409,016 long tons of sugar, and in the chapters relating to the history of sugar will be found a statement setting forth theamount produced by each country. The total was derived about one-half from cane and one-half from beets, produced as follows:
Sugar cane, described in botany asSaccharum officinarum, is a giant-stemmed perennial grass that grows from eight to twenty-four feet long. When ripe it produces at the top of its stalk a large feathery plume of flowers of a gray inflorescence called the “tassel,” which is from two to four feet in length.
There are many kinds of cane, all of which are regarded as varieties of one species, although some botanists have raised a few to the rank of distinct species. The cultivated types are distinguished by the color of the internodes, yellow, red, purple or striped, and by other general characteristics.
SUGAR CANE—SHOWING EYES OR BUDS
SUGAR CANE—SHOWING EYES OR BUDS
SUGAR CANE—SHOWING EYES OR BUDS
The stem of the cane is solid, with joints at intervals of three to six inches. In diameter it ranges from one to two and a half inches, and is unbranched, bearing in its upper part numerous long, narrow grass-like leaves, arranged in two rows. The leaves spring from large sheaths around the joints, and have a more or less spreading blade from three to five feet in length and two inches or more in width. The pith, of open cellular structure, contains the sugary juice. The tops, which contain but little sugar, are not crushed, but are used for seed, as the plant germinates from the eyes, or buds, which grow on thestem around the joints. Practically no cultivated cane is propagated from its seed. The roots that remain in the ground after the cane is harvested throw up fresh canes or ratoons for many seasons, after which replanting is necessary. Hawaiian growers do not count on ratoons for more than a few crops, whereas in Cuba this process can be repeated for many years.
As a rule, sugar cane consists of about eighty-eight per cent of juice and twelve per cent of fiber, the juice content varying from time to time, both as regards quality and amount. The quantity of the juice pressed from the cane determines the efficiency of the extraction, while quality is the main factor when the result of subsequent manufacture is under analysis.
It is difficult to arrive at a fair average of the composition of the juice of the cane, as it varies in different countries, on different plantations in the same country, and at different periods in any one year. The following is an approximation: