The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 16, 1897 Page: 12 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 15 x 11 in. Digitized from 35 mm. microfilm.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THfl ÓÓUTHfiRÑ HBRCÜRV.
December 16,18éf
A Contrast.
V. E. Hagart.
The summer is over the autumn is
past,
And now comes winter with his chill-
ing blatt;
The earth Is covered by frost and snow,
The river is frozen from shore to fhore,
To the rich it means nothing bat joy
and pleasure.
As they sit by their fl *e and read at
their leisure,
Or glide over the snow In their beau-
tiful sleighs,
They f« el not the chill of the cold
winter days.
But not so the thousands who work
for their broad,
They look for Its coming with a fi el-
ing of dread,
And struggle to keep the wolf from
their door,
Through the long dreary months till
the winter is o'er.
Is ignorant don't seem to bother the
Senator. He has supreme confidence
in the abllty of the other one-fourth
to stuff the ballot boxes.
Mesquite Beans*
The Eagle Pass Guide says: "The
problem of how to utilize the vast
quantities of mesquite heaps that
grow on the prairies of Western Texas
has, it is believed, been solved. A. J.
Conley, manager of the Luling cotton
oil mill, believes he has solved the
problem. He has gathered a ton of
mesquite beans and treated them in the
same manner as cotton seed. From
the ton of beans he secured sixteen
and one-half gallons of clear, amber-
colored oil, very rich and with a very
pleasant aromatic smell. The cake is
dark brown, quite oily and Is eaten
greedily by stock. It is a well known
fact that stock fatten rapidly on the
fact that stock fatten rapidly on these
beans, and that the year when the
crop is a heavy one, is always a pros-
perous one for stock men. This year
the beans are very plentiful, thou-
sands of tons of them falling from the
trees and rotting. If they could be
saved In the shape of oil cake there
would be almost enough to carry stock
through the winter."
It Is very probable that in mesquite
beans there are many valuable com-
mercial qualities. Out of this oil
doubtless a shrewd yankee would make
high-priced pomades, soaps, Balves,
liquors and other medicinal articles.
Texas schools turn out many politi-
cians and lawyers and doctors and
preachers, but no practical chemists,
machinists or manufacturers. The
average Texas farrrer knows but little
beyond cotton. an<i his knowledge in
that direction is not paying on the in-
vestment. The few that read and ex-
periment rarely givo their neighbors
the benefit of their knowledge. Enter-
prising chemists Enst will make money
out of these beans some day.
Sorghum Manufacture.
Sorghum was introduced into this
country in 1851. It has been widely
cultivated. It is said that it is the
only foreign plant which has been in-
troduced since colonial days
which has attained sufficient im-
portance to be included in
the census. In the forty-six
yeai^ which have passed since the
introduction of the sorghum plant, the
manufacture of sorghum syrup has not
improved. It is made now as then,
except that it is now "boiled shallow"
instead of in deep kettles. Public
taste has greatly changed in the past
twenty-five years. Then every grocery
store had New Orleans molasses,
black, thick and strong, and nearly
every house had a molasses jug. Then
the cloudy, dark, strongly acid, rank-
flavored sorghum passed as good. Not
so now. At one time the production
of sorghum syrup in this country
amounted to 30,000,000 gallons an-
nually. It has greatly declined. Thous-
ands of small mills are idle, nearly
all of thé steam sorghum mills are
rusting. The cause is that sorghum
sprup manufacture has not Improved.
The manufacture of glucose syrups be-
gan eighty years ago. It had Its dif-
ficulties in manufacture. It was not
until 1875 that that industry learned
how to meet and obviate those difficul-
ties. Then that industry prospered
wonderfully.
In the years 1860-62 hundreds of
thousands of dollars were spent in ex-
perimenting in glucose manufacture.
As a result the difficulties were met,
one by one. Success was achieved in
producing cheaply an article which,
though it has little value by itself, yet
finds ready sale as a constituent of
better syrups. Now It is said the pro-
duction of glucose In this country
amounts to 1000 tons a day. Beet su-
gar manufacture had its difficulties. It
has been said by one. who knew, that
the beet Industry began 140 years ago,
and for half of that Ume no one could
make it pay. By patient experiment-
ing it was also learned how to clarify
the beet juice rightly, and now 5,000,-
000 tons of beet sugar are made an-
nually.
'When the sorghum syrup and
sugar-makers learn by patient ex-
perimenting how to purify sorghum
juice properly, then they also may
prosper. Tropical sugar cane juice has
about 1% per cent of vegetable matter
which is considered impurity. Sor-
ghum has more than twice as much.
This is the difficulty in sorghum man-
ufacture. If 100 pounds of beet juice
are evaporated to dryness, 80 to 90
per cent of the dry residue is sugar,
has got to be got rid of. If 100 pounds
of sugar cane juice is evaporated to
and 10 to 20 per cent is impurity which
dryness, 80 to 85 per cent of the residue
is cane sugar, 15 to 20 per cent is im-
purity which has got to be got rid of.
If 100 pounds of sorghum juice is evap-
orated to dryness, 70 to 75 per cent is
sugar, 25 to 30 per cent is impurity
which has to be got rid of. It is this
excess of impurity in sorghum
which has been so difficult to deal
with.
Sorghum juice is capable of making
the finest unrefined table syrup, not
second to syrup from tropical sugar
cane, but second only to the syrups
produced from the maple tree and by
the honey ,bee. It requires only to
have the impurities completely re-
moved "by chemical means. The quality
of the syrup is determined by the clar-
ification. It seems to make little dif-
ference how the evaporation is per-
formed.
Sorghum juice can be clarified cold,
so that it filters easily, removing the
impurities before heating, or it may be
heated and then clarified, so that no
skimming is to be done during evap
oration, after the clarification the foam
being clear and white.
Syrup made from juice of goo cane,
properly purified, will always crystal-
lize unless prevented by using methods
which prevent the separation of the
sugar. The sugar-maker wishes his
syrup to crystallise, the syrup-maker
does not wish it to crystallize. Each
must use thé métixods suited to his ob-
ject.
It is as easy to make sugar from
sorghum juice of good quality which
has had the impuritites well removed,
as it is to make sugar from maple
sap, or from the sap of the sugar palm,
for it is then as pure as these saps.
The problem in making sorghum
syrup or sugar, is inthepurlfyingofthe
juice. Sorghum juice always contains
vegetable impurities, sometimes more,
sometimes less, but it always has
slimy, gummy, mucilaginous matters,
which in old times was called "fecu-
lencies." These give sorghum syrup a
flavor which is not popular, and they
also reduce the yield of sugar. These
impurities cannot all be gotten out by
mere skimming. They must be gotten rid
of by either finding some variety of
sorghum which does not contain them,
or they must be gotten out of the juice
by chemical means.
There is an unreasonable prejudice •
on the part of some against the use
of chemicals in articles of food. But
chemicals are good or bad, harmful or
useful. They may be used, they may
be abused. Chemicals are now in gen-
eral use in preparing and in preserving
food, and their use is rapidly extend-
ing. There are many who believe that
in the "good time coming" the staple
articles of human food will be pro-
duced by chemicals, instead of depend-
ing upon the slow and uncertain and
expensive chemical agencies which
work so obscurely in plants. The
chief difference between the diet of a
savage man and the food of a civilized
man is that one uses no chemicals in.
preparing his food, while the other
does use them.—pansas Farmer.
■
Ex-State Treasurer Bartley, the free
silverite, whom the Bryanites elected
in Nebraska, is short in his accounts
with the state $870,000. He is now in
jail under a twenty years' sentence in
the penitentiary.
A WONDERFUL TALKING MACHINE.
Perfection has at last surely been reached
in talking machines. The latest and most
perfect machine has Just come out. It is
loud and clear, and reproduees your own
or any voice over and over again; speeches
from the most noted statesmen, songs
from the world's greatest singers, music
from the greatest bands. The price of this
wonderful machine Is but $10. and It affords
a wonderful opportunity for those who
wish to give public entertainments. This
machine Is now controlled by, and cata-
logue and full particulars can be had from.
Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago. Just cut
this notice out and send to them for a
book telling all about It.
Senator Morgan, of Alabama, Is
anxious to annex Hawaii. The fact
that three-fourths of the population
PROMPTLY MNT TO KVntY Man WHO ÉMM A MNIMAI. BRACING UP.
IT BRINGS PERFECT MANHOOD TO ALL.
"•íaUST PHYSICIANS' INSTITUTE, of Chloago, III.
ORATUITOIMLY, QWADIY 8BNT to all mon who nootf It and who will wrlto for It.
READ WHAT. THUS HTIIIltl MYl1
Um, La., hit a UN.
MIm Ft—,-Him mat n
anh Cat Uta Mrtmi km 4mm
fit.
liuwm, YAM., Mm. M, MM.
Duita,—I km i
mmHihhMm
at,«4M BfwU *
I MMl M Wf*
£fi£iSi i**
htímII) mmiriaS SÑk|Mi kíT
M MMl Mrf «til MffNlll I f
iiM* ni. Itjr Oa4 IIm ya* aaé iw
work. Towitraly, C. ir.
"•KT
sSSSSP
t .c
SATAM, R. P., tm. M, MK.
IMNM;
i,—I wtoh I M>rm mj
mOh far S imH *t mj
Dwiaftha laattwawaaka
aMSfsssaríawsrz
kimMflriM. ÍMÜÜÍIMIII
W|MNÉ «I tha teptrnont la mj
t —— ■ Baplac tkal jaa
—f ww (mu. I wih,
Vaan atacarety,
PHTSICUIS' IISTITUTB,
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 16, 1897, newspaper, December 16, 1897; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185736/m1/12/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .