Cantor lectures on sugar, coffee, tea, and cocoa : their origin, preparation, and uses / by Richard Bannister.

  • Bannister, Richard.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cantor lectures on sugar, coffee, tea, and cocoa : their origin, preparation, and uses / by Richard Bannister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1 been cultivated in the United States. These grasses—chiefly Sorghum vulgare and Sor¬ ghum saccharatum have been under special cultivation and investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture, and elabo¬ rate reports on the subject have been issued. The crop has been cultivated because it appears to stand against the frost better than the sugar-cane, and it also arrives at maturity at a different season of the year. It was thought therefore that sorghum cultivation might supplement cane-growing, and thus one central factory might be used for manipulating the two crops. The industry, however, is not a large one, and as the quantity produced is on the descending scale it is apparent that that there is either some defect of quality, or that the cost of production is too high for commercial purposes. In 1880, trials were made with sorghum growing on the Duke of Rutland’s estate at Belvoir. Our variable climate, however, speedily put an end to these experiments. In the spring of that year the cold was very great and continuous, consequently the plants made very slow progress in growth, and though the month of August was favourable, the suc¬ ceeding months were very unseasonable, and the crop never arrived at maturity. Under more propitious circumstances other results might have been obtained, but the experiment proved that a crop depending for its success so much upon warmth and regularity of tempera¬ ture could never be depended on in a climate like ours. In this, as in other crops, local circum¬ stances may sometimes favour the growth and cultivation of a special plant or tree for the production of sugar, but as a rule the sugar of commerce known as cane sugar is produced from the cane or beet; and our remarks must therefore be confined to them in a general lecture, especially when, in this country at least, the sugar of commerce is obtained entirely from these two sources, the raw sugar for direct consumption being the product of the cane, and the refined sugar being more or less a mixture of the two. The sugar-cane is in reality a gigantic grass. Its varieties are too numerous to recapitulate. The principal are the Boitrbon, which came originally from the Malabar coast; the Otciheite, much cultivated in the West Indies ; the Batavian, the Chinese, the S. Pacific, and the Elephant cane of Cochin China, which justifies its name by reaching the astonishing height of 11 feet in six months In structure the cane has a knotty stalk, and at each knot a leaf and an inner joint. The root-bearing portion, or stole, is divided into two parts, the first formed of several peculiar joints varying in number from five to seven, divided from each other by a radicle leaf. The first cane joints are also provided with rudimentary roots, which develop when neces¬ sary until they form a basis sufficiently strong to support the cane itself. The roots are slender, with a few fibres at their extremities, and are seldom more than 1 foot long. The joints of the stalk vary from 4Q to 80 in number; the individual joints themselves run from 2\ to 3 inches in length in the latter, to 8 to 9 inches in the former, and even in the same plant have various differences of length and thickness. The sap vessels are large and very numerous; the leaves, alternate and divided into two parts by a nodosity, expand on the top of the plant like a fan. From the centre of the last radicle knot the germ of the , first cane joint springs, and requires from four to five months for its entire growth. During this time some 15 to 20 joints spring from it in succession, the period of maturity of each being ascertained by the decay of its leaf. Under cultivation very few of the canes ever bloom, and consequently the propagation has to be effected entirely by cuttings, any part of the stem having a perfect eye or bud serving the purpose. On ripening, the canes are cut as close to the stoles as possible - the juice of the lower joints being richest in sugar. The top and the two upper joints are discarded, their juice being of very poor quality. As to climate, anything approaching cold opposes growth, and so the whole of Europe is unfit, with the exception of a small portion of Spain. In certain parts of India the juice is sometimes spoiled by frost, and this is the case in Louisiana. An almost ideal soil is the “brick mould” of the East and West Indies — a mixture of sand and clay, hoed and dug with ease —constituted so as to allow air and moisture to penetrate to some depth, draining well, yet moist in the hottest seasons. Some of the best sugars are produced on limestone soils. The importance of good manure will be apparent when it is considered that 1,000 tons of cane take from the soil nearly 5 tons of mineral matter, and it is obvious that if the soil cannot supply this in a form capable of assimilation, a full crop of sugar cannot be raised. The most important matters appear