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experience proves that the desired substance is most readily, most
abundantly, and most cheaply, obtained from the juices of the plant
commonly known as sugar cane, and from the vegetable known as the sugar
beet.

The mechanical processes employed in producing sugar from cane and from
beets, are practically the same. They are, broadly, the extraction or
expression of the juices, their clarification and evaporation, and
crystallization. These processes produce what is called "raw sugar," of
varying percentages of sucrose content. Following them, there comes,
for American uses, the process of refining, of removing the so-called
impurities and foreign substances, and the final production of sugar in
the shape of white crystals of different size, of sugar as powdered, cube,
loaf, or other form. In the case of cane sugar, this is usually a secondary
operation not conducted in the original mill. In the case of beet sugar,
production is not infrequently a continuous operation in the same mill,
from the beet root to the bagged or barrelled sugar ready for the market.
The final product from both cane and beet is practically the same. Pure
sugar is pure sugar, whatever its source. In the commercial production, on
large scale, there remains a small fraction of molasses or other harmless
substances, indistinguishable by sight, taste, or smell. With that fraction
removed and an absolute 100 per cent. secured, there would be no way
by which the particular origin could be determined. For all practical
purposes, the sugar of commerce, whether from cane or beet, is pure sugar.
It is doubtful if an adulterated sugar can be found in the United States,
notwithstanding the tales of the grocer who "sands" his sugar, and of the
producer who adds _terra alba_ or some other adulterant. In some countries
of Europe and elsewhere, there are sugars of inferior grades, of 85 or 90
or more degrees of sugar purity, but they are known as such and are sold at
prices adjusted to their quality. Sugars of that class are obtainable
in this country, but they are wanted almost exclusively for particular
industrial purposes, for their glucose rather than their sucrose content.
The American household, whether the home of the rich or of the poor,
demands the well-known white sugar of established purity.

There is still obtainable, in this country, but in limited quantity, a
sugar very pleasantly remembered by many who have reached or passed middle
age. It wa