Sugar Cane
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Sugar Cane. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
Saccharum officinarum, a strong, cane-stemmed grass, from 8 to 12 feet high , producing a large, feathery plume of flowers. It is wild or cultivated in the Southern United States, India, China, the South Sea Islands, the West Indies, and South America, flour ishing in the zone or belt from the equator to 35° or 40° N. and S. The land chosen for its cultivation is usually a good loam or light clay well manured. The leafy ends of the canes of the preceding season are cut off, or the whole cane is cut up, each piece being made to contain two nodes or joints. Twenty thousand of these are planted on each acre in January and February, the harvest begins early in December, and the cutting and crushing of the canes are carried on till January or February. There are several varieties of the sugar cane. SUGARS. Sugar is the generic name for a class of substances belonging to the carbohydrate group. They either occur naturally in the animal or vegetable kingdom, or are produced by the action of dilute acids or ferments on another class of bodies known as glucosides. As a class, they possess a sweet taste, although the degree of sweetness varies greatly with sugars of different kinds. They are readily soluble in water, less soluble and some times wholly insoluble in alcohol, and insoluble in ether and similar solvents which will not mix with water. Some sugars undergo alcoholic fermentation with yeast, others change from one sugar to another under the action of dilute acids. Many of them are of great value as foodstuffs. Chemically, they consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the ratio of hydrogen to oxygen being always the same as in water, namely two atoms of hydrogen to one of oxygen. They are divided into three large groups: (1) The mono-saccharides, having the formula C6H12O6. (2) The disaccharides, having the formula C12H22 O11. (3) The tri-saccharides, having the formula C18H32016. It will be noticed that the formula for the di-saccharides is exactly twice that of the mono-saccharides less one molecule of water H₂O; while the tri-saccharides are three times the mono-saccharides, less two molecules of water. All the common sugars belong to one of the first two groups. 1. Mono-saccharides. The best known sugar among the mono-saccharides is , commonly known as Glucose, Dextrose, se although this latter name is also applied to other sugars of a similar character. It occurs in large quantities in grapes and hence is sometimes called grape sugar. Hard nodules of this sugar are frequently found in dried grapes or raisins, and it is a common constituent of sweet fruits and also occurs in honey. It is prepared , roots and leaves, artificially by boiling a solution of cane sugar with dilute acids, and also from starch by similar means, this process being known as "inversion." So-called syrup corn Dextrose crystallizes in warty masses, is inverted corn starch. but is most familiar in the form of syrup. It is less sweet than cane sugar. Fructose or Levulose, is to dextrose and occurs with it in many closely allied sweet fruits and in honey. When cane sugar is inverted by dilute acids, equal parts of dextrose and levulose are produced, the mixture being known as "invert sugar." The other monocharides are of academic interest only. sac- 2. Di-saccharides. The commonest disaccharide is Sucrose or Cane sugar. The two chief sources from which it is obtained are the sugar cane and the sugar beet. The former contains 15-20 per cent., the latter seldom more than 16 per cent. It also occurs in many sweet fruits, such as the pineapple, the strawberry, etc. Sucrose crystallizes from water in foursided prisms. It melts at 160° C., and on cooling solidifies to a glassy mass known as barley-sugar. Heated to higher temperatures, it loses water and becomes converted to caramel. It is very soluble in water, at ordinary temperatures dissolving in one-third of its weight of water. Sucrose is the chief constituent of maple sugar. Maltose or malt sugar is formed from starch by the enzyme diastase. Malt is the grain of barley which has been caused to sprout by wetting it, in heaps, with water and then keeping in a warm moist atmosphere. This sprouting brings about the formation of the diastase. to transform the town into a watering On drying the malt and stirring with water, the diastase acts upon the starch, converting it to maltose. Since the passing of the Prohibition Act, large quantities of malt syrup have been placed on the market as a table syrup, a basis for soft drinks, for candy manufacture and other purposes. Lactose or Milk-sugar is an important constituent of the milk of all mammals, in which it occurs to the extent of about 4 per cent., although the precentage varies somewhat. It can be prepared from milk by treating with rennet, when the curd separates, leaving the sugar in solution in the whey. On evaporation the crude lactose is obtained. The solution may be purified by filtration through charcoal, and the sugar obtained by crystallization. Lactose is far less sweet than cane sugar. The tri-saccharides are of academic interest only, the most important being raffinose. The action of dilute acids on sugars is of interest and importance. As already stated, sucrose undergoes inversion when its solution is boiled with dilute acids, invert sugar, a mixture of dextrose and levulose, being produced. Similar changes take place in all the disaccharides, under similar conditions, in every case one or more mono-saccharides being formed. Milk sugar gives dextrose and galactose, maltose gives dextrose only. The process is one of splitting the sugar molecule in two with the addition of a molecule of water, thus: C12H22O11 + H2O = 2C6H12O6 The fermentation of cane sugar, maltose and lactose by yeast can only take place after inversion. This can be brought about either by dilute acids, as described above, or by an organism known as an enzyme. Ordinary yeast contains the enzyme which inverts cane sugar and maltose, and hence can ferment both these sugars. Dextrose, fructose and invert sugar are fermentable by all yeasts.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a tall, heavy plant of the grass family, noted for a large yield of sweet sap. It is closely akin to the sorghum, but is larger, better flavored, and is sweeter. It requires a warm climate, a moist soil, and a long growing season. Sugar-cane produces abortive seed heads. It is planted by laying canes along in a furrow. New plants spring from buds at the joints. The plant grows from five to fifteen feet high. The canes are from one to two inches in diameter. Louisiana leads the Union in the production of cane sugar. A low, level belt of rich soil follows the Mississippi River to New Orleans and extends westward a few miles inland, clear into Texas. It is one of the most fertile regions in the world, and is perfectly adapted to cane raising. The fields are plowed in long, narrow bands, and are provided with a system of parallel and cross ditches; for, in addition to being but a few feet above Gulf level, the cane belt has an annual rainfall of fifty inches, or over four feet of water. As stated, cane is laid in furrows about five or seven feet apart during the winter, or from September to March. The field is cultivated one way with mules and shovel plows. The cane is ready to cut in November. Complete plantations have spur tracks, or tramways laid out into the fields. Cane is stripped, topped, loaded on flat cars, and conveyed direct to the sugar house. A complete sugar-house equipment with a Corliss engine costs $250,000. The entire plant, sidings and all, is under cover. The cane is dragged by power up an endless apron into a hopper and is fed to gigantic steel rollers that crush 1,000 tons a day. The cane is crushed and recrushed. The sap runs away in troughs to huge vats. The crushed cane or bagasse goes off on an endless carrier in another direction to feed the flames in a hissing white furnace. The sap is purified, evaporated, and refined, finally coming to barrel as white, granulated, or brown, that is to say, as firsts, seconds, thirds, open kettle sugar, and New Orleans molasses. All products are handled through wholesale houses. A grocery in Franklin, forty yards from the largest sugar plantation and sugar house in Louisiana, cannot get a barrel of local sugar except through a New Orleans wholesaler. The last American census gave 351 factories. Planters sell their cane to larger owners. About eighteen per cent of the total weight of the mature cane is sugar, but part of the juice is left in the bagasse. As a matter of fact, a ton of cane yields 160 pounds of sugar. Sugar-cane is a native of Southern Asia, possibly of China as well, where it has been cultivated for 3,000 years. Columbus carried it from the Canary Islands to the Carribean Sea. It was introduced in Louisiana by the Jesuit fathers in 1751. The chief foreign or outlying sugar-cane-producing regions of the world are India, China, Cuba, Java, Mauritius, Peru, and Argentina. See Sorghum ; Hawaii ; Louisiana Sulla (138-78 B. C.), a noted Roman known in history as the Dictator. He was well born and had the advantage of an education. His youth was passed in notorious and shameless debauchery. He was a brilliant soldier and officer, serving with distinction in the Jugurthine War under Marius and later in the Cimbrian and Social wars. He incurred the enmity of his old commander Marius by receiving an appointment to the command of the army designed to subdue Mithridates, a position coveted by Marius himself. Sulla was obliged to flee from the city secretly, yet, reentering at the head of an army, he drove Marius into Africa. In 87-84 B. C. he carried on a vigorous war in Greece and Asia. He forced Mithridates to sue for peace, and loaded himself and soldiers with rich spoils. In the meantime Marius had died, having first secured the passage of a measure proscribing Sulla and confiscating his property. Sulla, being free to attend to Rome and his enemies at home, landed at Brundisium with an army of 40,000 men. He defeated the adherents of Marius in four battles and, flushed with victory, took possession of Rome. Six thousand Marian prisoners of war were executed in the public circus. Lists of citizens to be slain were posted in public. Victims were hunted like wild animals. The city ran with blood. Many a supporter of his old friend Marius fled into the provinces only to be followed by an emissary bent on murder. In 81 B. C. Sulla counseled an obsequious Senate to make him dictator, a position he appears to have resigned voluntarily a short time before his death. He took care of his old soldiers by giving them lands in various parts of Italy. Sulla's conduct was no doubt the joint product of a natural disposition and the cruel, corrupt spirit of the times in which he lived; but his enormities were such as to cause his name to live forever.