Both the cheapness of its culture, and, practically speaking, the familiarity of farmers with the methods of culture, place sorghum upon a wholly different footing from the sugar beet. To say no thing of our climate, to which sorghum in its several varieties is now well suited, the beetroot is known to require rich ground, careful culture, and much labor. Another advantage to be cred ited to sorghum, is the freedom of its juice from offensive impuri ties. Beet juice is contaminated with some substance which ren ders the brown sugar obtained from it unfit to be eaten. In order that it may be palatable, beet sugar has to be refined to brilliant whiteness, and the molasses obtained in the process of manufac ture is useless except for purposes of distillation. The better kinds of sorghum are free from this reproach. The juice of ap proved varieties has no disagreeable flavor, and both the brown sugar and the molasses obtained from it are palatable and fit for domestic use.
Professor Collier, of the Department of Agricniture at Wash ington, finds that there is no difficulty in making from sorghum an abundance of sugar of first-rate quality. He confirms the fact that the per tentage of crystallizable sugar in the juice is largest when the plant is dead ripe—that is to say, when all parts of it have thoroughly matured. His plants maintained this condition of maximum sweetness very well when once it was attained, some of them for a period of two months, which gave him nearly twice the time that is commonly had in Louisiana to work up the cane.
He finds also that former failures to get crystallized sugar from sorghum are to be attributed for the most part to improper manip ulation of the juice after expression. In a number of trials, with samples of sorghum from various localities, he obtained, as the average yield, more than a ton of sugar to the acre of land. In one instance he got three tons of sugar to the acre, and has no doubt that from some of the Southern varieties two tons of sugar may be obtained practically. The significance of these results is well brought out by the statement of the Commissioner of Agri culture that there were imported into this country from abroad in the year 1878, 1,741,650,000 pounds of sugar, to say nothing of molasses, while the yield of sugar from the tropical cane in the Gulf States amounted to only about 2:50,000,000 pounds. Our people are said to consume sugar at the rate of about forty pounds to each person every year ; but for 50,000,000 inhabitants this would amount to a couple of billions of pounds, which, at no higher price than five cents per pound, would come to $100,000, 000 per annum.