SORGHUM SUGAR. The Nation says that a striking feat ure of American agriculture is the enormous aggregate yield of most of the crops which are cultivated. This truth is now receiv ing new illustration by a great movement in the cultivation of sorghum for sugar, which is rapidly becoming a matter of truly national significance. The great production of glucose from corn may, however, check the cultivation of other sweets.
Nearly thirty years ago, the French Consul at Shanghai sent home seeds of a sugar-producing sorghum which attracted much attention, for it was seen at once, and perhaps even more clearly than it is now, that a Northern sugar cane would be a great de sideratum. It was not long before other varieties of the sweet sorghum were brought from Zululand to Europe, and both the Chinese and African plants were soon introduced into this coun try, where their seeds were widely distributed. Hopes were en tertained at that time by many people that the general cultivation of sorghum at the North would have an important influence upon the great question of the day—the relations of slavery to labor ; and no little excitement attended the dissemination of the plants. These anticipations were not to be immediately realized. On the contrary, it soon appeared that, although the sorghum plant yielded an abundance of sweet juice, there was some difficulty in the way of getting from this juice profitable quantities of the solid, crystal ized sugar. It was shown, indeed, long ago. by the highest chem ical authority, that there is an abundance of cane sugar in the sorghum plant, particularly when it is thoroughly ripe, and it is now known that the failure to get crystalized sugar, though due in some part, perhaps, to the immaturity of the plants, must be attributed to improper methods of procedure in attempting to clarify the juice and to prepare the syrup for crystalization. It has been finally made clear that unless the juice is properly managed most of the cane sugar contained in it easily changes to an uncrystal izable variety of sugar, so that nothing but molasses is obtained on evaporating the juice. The necessary operations are not difficult, but they require prompt action. The juice should not be left to itself after expression; a small quantity of lime must be added to it, to neutralize the slight natural acidity, and the defecated juice should be boiled down speedily to the consistence of syrup. As
in the making of maple sugar, very simple appliances yield good results.
After a few years of active effort, the conviction became gen eral that there was no likelihood of the plant's competing with the sugar cane of the South, and with this conclusion the general pub lic lost its interest in the subject. But many farmers continued to grow small quantities of sorghum for the sake of the syrup, which was readily obtained, and served to replace molasses for house hold use.
At the West, the African varieties of sorghum seem to have been preferred i-o the Chinese, because the plant itself is less liable to be broken down by prairie winds, because it ripens earlier, and because its juice was thought to crystalize more readily. For a number of years samples of crystalized •sugar have occasionally been prepared from sorghum syrup at the West, and a certain mild interest in the question of sugar-making has been manifested there all along, until, within the last year or two, the attention of the agricultural public has again been everywhere awakened, and the conviction has become general that the subject is really one of vast importance.
The period of comparative quiescence which succeeded the ex citement of twenty years ago appears to have been of no little use in perfecting the sorghum plant and the processes by which sugar is prepared from it. Both the Chinese and the African plants were introduced into this country, and by the crossing and hybrid izing of varieties, new and better kinds of sorghum have been ob tained, several of which are particularly well adapted for the Northern States. It is claimed for the several varieties that one or another of them will succeed wherever Indian corn can be grown, and it seems to be plain that henceforth the corn-growing States are to be sugar-producing States also. It grows well on "corn-land" even of the lighter and drier sorts, and has no marked needs or peculiarities to be studied and allowed for ; and since every farmer in the land knows how to grow corn, the transition to sorghum cannot fail of being easy. Our farmers have, more over, in process of time, arrived at singularly cheap and effective methods of corn-growing which are almost absolutely applicable to the new crop.