Story Of Sugar (1952)

[Music] about two-thirds of the world's sugar supply comes from the sweet juice of sugar cane a tropical plant from moist climates sugarcane has long been known and valued in the far east it moved into europe with the returning crusaders in the 14th century and columbus brought it to america the second time he sailed into new world waters since that time natives have planted grown and harvested the cane crudely cooking and refining the juice as they still do in tropical areas [Music] but sugar has become one of the world's leading industrial products in the united states sugar cane is grown mostly in louisiana and in some parts of florida it grows the year round for while fully matured cane is being harvested on one section of a big plantation there may be cultivators working in young cane just across a ditch the cycle begins in the spring as with most farm crops when the ground is plowed and made ready for planting after preparation the ground lies waiting until late summer july or august when the planting is actually done taking tall fully grown cane stalks cut from other sections of the plantation the planters lay the entire stock leaves in all lengthwise in prepared furrows where they will be covered by ground throwing cultivators which follow the planters along many acres are planted in one day [Music] when the planting is complete the ground is piled high in the center of the roads later those same rows support the tender young stocks of growing cane cultivators passed constantly along mulching the ground killing weeds and grass and piling more and more soil against the roots of the cane while the cane is still in the cultivating stage liquid fertilizer is poured into the soil like most activities on a modern efficient sugar cane plantation the process of fertilizing is highly mechanized [Music] everything is done during the early life of the cane to make it grow lush and heavy from the deep soil here is evidence of how successfully that job is done a tremendous clump of roots has sprung from just one joint of the original piece of planted cane from these roots will grow a large clump of stalks before long the cane grows too high for further cultivation drainage furrows are then cut between the rows and the cane is laid by to wait for full maturity and harvest as cutting time approaches in late september and early october tests are run every few days on sugar content of juice in the fully grown stocks when the peak point is finally reached the tremendous surge of harvest activity swings into gear specially built giant cutters go up and down the roads cutting and laying bunches of cane in neat piles along its path [Music] after lying on the ground for a few days the leaves become dry and brittle fires are set which sweep the long roads burning the leaves quickly enough to leave the juice-filled stalks undamaged [Music] later the cane is piled in bunches for the loader this machine is something like a big hay fork picking up the heavy bunches with its sharp curving arms and dropping them into carts which will take the load from the field either to waiting trucks or directly to a nearby mill [Music] a big sugar mill at grinding time is a fascinating place giant cranes handle thousands of tons of cane a day streams of loaded trailers and trucks pour into the mill yard where mountains of cane are stacked everywhere one feels the urgency to finish the harvest before the first heavy frost [Music] [Music] there's a constant clank of chains and rumbling steel conveyors and over the whole operation hangs the sweet odor of ground cane and cooking juice as cane passes along the conveyor streams of water under pressure shoot into it washing away the dirt [Music] then it heads into the shredder where whirring knives chop it into a thousand small pieces from there it goes on into the mill inside the shredded mass is dumped immediately into the crusher channel where it passes between six to eight ribbed rollers under increasingly heavy pressure beneath the channel the juice pours from the cane pulp [Music] after leaving the crusher the juice is heated and passed through a huge rotating filter to remove impurities the muddy substance containing those impurities is scraped from the filter as waste while the juice passes on to its first cooking and here is the result of that cooking a black mass of molasses [Music] this clears to a nice brown as the whirling pan throws the blackened liquid out through tiny holes in the sides leaving only the brown crystals of sugar behind [Music] this is raw brown sugar from here it goes to the refinery for purification and further processing before it becomes the finely granulated pure white sugar to which we're all accustomed some refineries are part of the mill which grinds the cane most of them however are separate built to handle not only sugar from cane raised in the united states but to accommodate the far greater amount shipped in from places like cuba puerto rico and hawaii these men at the refinery are emptying sacks of raw sugar just received and the final processes of sugar production are begun [Music] first step in refining is to wash more molasses from the brown sugar crystals next they are dissolved in warm water and pass through another filter here the sugar is in solution with a warm amber color now comes one of the most important steps of the refining process to make the sugar white that amber liquid is filtered through great 25 foot tanks of bone char these laboratory tubes partly filled with char illustrate the process [Music] and the liquid sugar at the bottom is completely colorless in the refinery's huge filters char is treated and used over and over again [Music] char and sugar are fed together into the top of a huge tank the filtering process begins [Music] here in the so-called liquor gallery the progress of each tank is checked [Music] now comes the job of turning the liquid back to sugar and of producing crystals of the size wanted this is done by boiling the liquid in a vacuum at low temperature the operator checks constantly studying the size of the crystals over a light bulb handily placed for the purpose when the exact time has arrived the tank of sugar still mixed with some syrup is emptied into a great trough [Music] and now for the final steps from the trough the sugar goes to a centrifugal machine where again the syrup coating on the crystals is to be thrown off through tiny holes in the sides this time only pure white sugar is left behind [Music] with the crystals washed clean the sugar is now scraped from the sides of the pan and sent on its way drying is done in great tanks like these and from here the sugar goes to the packaging room sugar in 1742 it sold for 2.75 cents a pound on world markets only the wealthy could afford to enjoy it today it is but one example of hundreds of items in daily use by the people of america and the world sugar modern industrial techniques and modern machines have multiplied sugar production many times over men have found ways to create jobs for untold thousands of people and at the same time reduce sugar costs to a few cents a pound it is used in many manufacturing processes and is found in almost every home of every industrialized nation in the world you