MOLASSES. Molasses is a viscid, usually dark colored unerystallizable liquid which seeps from the massecuite of sugar-cane or is thrown out by the centrifugal machine. The latter kind is re boiled as noted above; the former, being highly valued for its flavor and sweetness. is used as a food and for cooking. Since the introduc tion of the vacuum pan and the centrifugal ma chine it. has become annually less plentiful in the market, the small quantities made being used in the regions where cane sugar is manufactured. Most of the so-called New Orleans molasses is composed of glucose flavored with some molasses from the sugar factories. Spurious maple syrup and sugar (see above) are made of cane sugar and glucose often flavored with an extract of hickory bark. No table molasses is made from the sugar beet. because the impurities cannot be removed by any known process. Processes have been patented for the manufacture of table syrup from beet roots, hut they have hitherto been of little commercial importance.
Normally, cane molasses made by the open kettle process contains about 30 per cent. cane
sugar. 23 per cent. reducing sugar, and 47 per cent. water, ash, and impurities; that made in a large modern factory. 20 per cent, cane sugar, 25 per cent. reducing sugar, and 51 per cent. water, etc. Beet molasses contains 47 per cent. cane sugar, 5 per cent. reducing sugar, 20 per cent. water, 22 per cent. organic matter other than sugars, and 6 per cent. ash, etc. In sugar manufacturing regions molasses is mixed with such bulky materials as cottonseed meal, cotton seed hulls, etc., to be easily handled and fed to stock as a cheap source of carbohydrate food. Tn Europe several 'molasses feeds' have been proposed and one has been manufactured in com mercial quantities from four parts bran, three parts beet-sugar molasses, and one part palm nut cake. Another preparation composed of dried blood, peat, extracted beef pulp, and mo lasses has also been tried with favorable results.