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FIG. 34. Sugar cane ready for harvest (American Photo Co., Havana).

before Christ. The Greek soldiers of Alexander the Great saw the sugar cane growing in India at the time of his conquest, and brought back stories of the wonderful reed which yielded a juice sweeter than honey. The Persians and Arabs carried the cultivation of the sugar cane westward, and we find that sugar was both grown and refined in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in the tenth century A.D. The Crusaders found sugar cane and sugar factories in Syria and Palestine, and brought back samples of the product upon their return from the East. The Saracens introduced the cultivation of sugar cane into Sicily and the Moors into Spain; the Spaniards in their turn carried the sugar cane with them to the New World during their voyages of discovery and colonization; and so the sugar cane was carried from its original home in India throughout the entire tropical and semitropical world.

At present the countries which lead in the production of sugar from cane are British India, Cuba, Java, and the United States, including Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippine Islands.

The cane is propagated by planting in plowed furrows the tops of the canes of the preceding crop. When the sprouts of young cane appear above ground, the fields are cultivated until the growth of the cane is well started or until the rainy season begins, and then left to grow for varying lengths of time depending upon the climatic conditions and custom of the locality. In Louisiana the whole period of growth is considerably less than a year; in Hawaii the cane is often allowed to grow for practically two years.

The sugar cane, when the crop is ready, is harvested by cutting off the stalk as close to the ground as possible, trimming off the green tops, and stripping off the leaves (Figs. 34 and 35). These and the other agricultural operations of planting, fertilizing, and cultivating require a large amount of labor, the expense for which makes up about three fourths of the cost of the raw sugar, the remaining one fourth being due to the expense of manufacture.

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FIG. 35. Harvesting sugar cane (American Photo Co., Havana).

The composition of the stalks and the expressed juice of the sugar cane vary considerably. The general range of the different constituents, as compiled from analyses made in different countries is given in the following table (Table 60):

TABLE 60. COMPOSITION OF SUGAR CANE AND ITS JUICE (BROWNE)

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Individual cases may show variations above or below these figures.

The sugar cane after it is hauled to the factory is first passed through mills to remove the juice (Fig. 36). The cane mills are of all kinds and types, and range from the crude ox-driven mills employed in the Philippines and other primitive countries to the high-power, steam-driven hydraulic nine- and twelve-roller mills employed in Cuba, Java, Hawaii, Porto Rico, Louisiana, and other countries where the most modern machinery is used. In the best-equipped factories the cane is delivered by an endless carrier to huge corrugated crushers, which reduce the stalks to a thick blanket of pulpy fiber, removing at the same time some 50 per cent to 60 per cent of the juice. The crushed stalks pass next through a mill of 3 rollers, where still more of the juice is removed; and then through a second, third, and sometimes a fourth set of such rollers, the hydraulic pressure upon the rollers

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FIG. 36. Cane mill with corrugated crusher and three sets of rolls (American Photo Co., Havana).

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