OIL AND SUGAR FROM CORN.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 90, 9 June 1843, Page 4

OIL AND SUGAR FROM CORN.

(From the Colonial Observer.) , A late report from the commissioners of Patents to the American Congress, presents the following important facts respecting the manufacture of sugar and oil:

Corn oil is produced from corn meal by fermentation, with the aid of barley and malt. It has been made and used for some time past in certain distilleries, by skimming off the oil as it rises on the meal in fermentation in the mash tub. It has, however, lately become the subject of particular attention as an article of manufacture, and with success. The meal after it has been used for the production of this oil it is said, will make harder and better pork when fed out to swine than before. The oil is of a good quality, and of a yellowish colour, and burns well. Further clarification, it is probable, may render it as colourless as the best sperm oil. Whether or not this may be the case, the ease with which it is made offers strong inducements to engage in the production of this article.

But a more important object in the production of Indian corn is doubtless the manufacture of sugar from the stalks. -In this point of view it posseses some very decided advantages over the • cane. The juice of the corn-stalk by Beaume’s saccharometer, reaches to 10 deg. of saccharine matter, which, in quality, is more than three times that of beet, five times that of maple, and fully equals, if it does not even exceed, that of the ordinary sugar cane in the United States. By plucking off the ears of corn from the stalks as they begin to form, the saccharine matter, which usually goes to the production of the ear, is retained in the stalk, so that the quantity it vields is thus greatly increased. One thousand pounds of sugar, it is believed, can easily be produced from an acre of corn. Should this fact seem incredible, reference need only be made to the weight of fifty bushels of corn in the ear, which the juice so retained in the stalk would have ripened, had not the ear when just forming been plucked away. Sixty pounds may be considered a fair estimate in weight, for a bushel of ripened corn ; and, at this rate, three thousand pounds of ripened corn will be the weight of the product of one acre. Nearly the whole of the saccharine part of this remains in the stalk, besides what would have existed there without such a removal of the ear. It is plain, therefore, that the sanguine conclusions of experiments during the past year have not been drawn from insufficient data. Besides, it has been ascertained, by trial, that corn, on being sown broadcast, (and so requiriug but little labour, comparatively, in its cultivation,) will produce five pounds per square foot, equal to one hundred and eight tons to the acre for fodder in a green ; state ; find it is highly probable that, when subjected to the treatment necessary to prepare- the stalk, as above described, in the best manner for the manufacture of sugar, a not less amount of crop may be produced. Should this prove to be the case, one thousand weight of sugar per acre might be too low an estimate. Experiments on a small scale have proved that six quarts of the juice, obtained from the corn-stalk sown broadcast, yielded one quart of crystalized syrup, which is equal to sixteen per cent.; while for one quart of syrup it takes thirty-two quarts of the sap of maple. . Again, the corn-stalk requires only one-fifth the pressure of the sugar cane, and the mill or press for the purpose is very simple and cheap in its construction, so that quite an article of expense will thereby be saved, as the cost of machinery in the manufacture of sugar from the cane is great. Only a small portion of the cane, also, in this country, where it is an exotic, ordinarily yields saccharine matter, while the whole of the corn-stalk, the very top only excepted, can be used. Further, while cane requires at least eighteen months, and sedulous cultivation, and much hard labour, to bring it to maturity, the sowing and ripening of the corn stalk may be performed, for the purpose of producing sugar, with ease, within seventy to ninety days; thus allowing no less than two crops in a season in many parts of our country. The stalls remaining after being pressed, also furnishes a valuable feed for cattle—enough, it is said, with the leaves, to pay for the whole expense of its culture. Should it be proved by further experiments, that the stalk, after being dried and laid up, can, by steaming, be subjected to the press without any essential loss of the saccharine principle, as is •the case with the beet in France, so that the manufacture of the sugar can be reserved till late in the autumn —this will still more enhance the value of this product for the purpose. It may also be true that, as in the case of the beet, no animal carbon may be needed, but a little lime-water will answer for the purpose of clarification ; after which, the juice may be boiled in a common kettle—though the improved method of using vacuum pans will prove more profitable when the sugar is-made on a large scale. Corn, too, is indigenous, and can be raised in all the States in the Union, while the cane is alrriost confined to one, and even in that the average amount of sugar, in ordinary crops, is but nine hundred or one thousand pounds to the acre; not much beyond one-third of the product in Cuba, and other tropical situations, where it is indigenoas to the soil, The invest-

ment in the sugar manufactures from the cane in this country, has, it is believed, paid a poorer return than almost any other agricultural product. The laudable enterprise of introducing into the United States the culture of the cane, and the manufacture of sugar, from the same has, it is probable, been hardly remunerated—though individual planters on some location shave occasionally enriched themselves. The amount of power required, with the cost of the machinery, and the means of cultivation, will ever place this branch of industry beyond the reach of moderate resources, while the apparatus and means necessary for the cultivation of corn and other crops, lie within the ability of many. Should the manufacture of sugar from the corn-stalk prove as successful as it now promises, enough might soon be produced to supply our entire home consumption, towards which, as has been mentioned, at least 120,000,000 pounds of foreign sugars are annually imported, and a surplus might be had for exportation. In Europe, already, more than 150,000,000 pounds of sugar are annually manufactured from the beet, which possesses but one-third of the saccharine master that the corn-stalk does ; and there are not less than five hundred beet sugar manufactories in France alone. By this manufacture of sugar at the west, the whole amount of freight and cost of transportation on imported sugar might also be saved—a sum nearly equal, it is probable, to the first cost of the article at the seaport; so that the price of sugar is at least doubled, if not almost trebled, to the consumer at a distance, when so imported. Not less than 6,000,000 pounds of sugar, it is said, are actually imported for home consumption, in the single city of Cincinnati. Investigation. —There is no boundary to the human investigation but the capacity of the human mind, Whatever the faculties enable it to understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the feedom of its enquiry, and with no other limit as to its extent than that which its great Author has fixed, by witholding from it the power to proceed further. When the means of conducting the human understanding till its highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously inculcated as a duty of primary and essential obligation. — lb.