206 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society 



edge that northern sugar making is considered an important question. This 

 country is p;iying out §140,000,000 for sugar every year, and if this can be 

 saved it ought to be done. I told President Earle that if they got through 

 witli the proceedings and a few minutes were given me, I would improve 

 tlie ojiportunity to show the imiiorUmcc of this subject. Two years ago when 

 we had that horticultural meeting between Kansas and Missouri, I made a 

 little talk. A man came to me and thanked me for it. He said before he 

 w.is opposed to it. He went homo and talked and wrote about the subject. 

 The result wa^ they made iJOO.tXlO jiounds of sugar. The best quality brought 

 eight and three-fourths cents a pound, and the second eight and one-fourth. 

 The sugar I exhibited to one of the largest Southern sugar makers. He saw 

 no diH'ercnce between it and Southern sugar. I wish I could induce all of 

 you to go home and do the same. 



Tlie Stiite of Missouri alone pays out four or five millions of dollars every 

 year for sugar which might be produced here. There is more than that 

 much consumeil here and in Kansas also. I want to see all our resources de- 

 veloped, and I know we can develop this. At Hutchinson, Kansas, an estab- 

 lishment was put up and 200,000 pounds were made. They feared they could 

 not produce it there, but when they tried it they were successf'il. I say here 

 to-day that you can no more certainly get cream from milk — flour from 

 grists, than you can get sugar from cane. M iny of us are prejudiced against 

 sorghum. We look back to the old cane mills and evaporators and are pre- 

 judiced. All our sj'rups are made mostly of glucose. Even down in New 

 Orleans, at the home of sugar makers, we were supplied with glucose. Gen- 

 tlemen, I say right there is the home of this glucose. Planters do not make 

 it. but others do. Everywhere they buy good molasses and add half or two- 

 thirds glucose. If you want good molasses you must depend on sorghum. 

 Now, can this be carried on successfully? In New Jersey they have made 

 some 300,000 ])ounds, also at Champaign, Illinois. It is the process there 

 adopted which is used in this S:ate. We have made this year nearly 1,000,000 

 pounds of sugar. I b'^lieve, in my lifetime, if I am spared to a good old age, 

 this country will make all its own sugar. Beets have been tried, but they are 

 not 8ucccs.sful. They are so costly, so hard on the soil; they have no com- 

 pensating things. In sorghum you have the seeds, which are good for feed — 

 equal to Corn— it alone paying for growing. S aithern sugar cane has no 

 compen.sating things. Labor is at a low ebb in the South, too. Of our dele- 

 gation which went down to New Orleans last year, all our Yankees from the 

 North tfstilied tint one of our N )rthern men would do more work than 

 three Southerners With our imi)roved sj'.stems we can raise ten acres 

 clieaper than they can rai.se one of Southern cane. Our friends in the South, 

 after seeing our sugar, appointed five men to come up and meet witli us. 

 Tht'v believe we will make more sugar and cheaper than they will. 



I wish I had a voice loud enough to reach every farmer. Can't you see 

 you are going to beat them in the race. If I had known I would have had 

 thJH opportunity, I w.)uld have brought samples of sugar and syrups. You 



