SUGAR FROM SORGHUM. I73 



juice. This Honduras varieh'^ reached its maximum the 20th of 

 October. Now we have here an ex|)lanation of most, I doubt not, 

 of the faihires of the past twenty-five or thirt}' years out West, and 

 of nearly all of those in New England during the past 3'ear or two. 

 What might be regarded as a sort of " boom" in sorgham sugar has 

 arisen recently, and by many it is thought it is to sutler another 

 decline. It will not go back again — it is bound to go ahead this 

 time, and I think I will clearly point out the reason for that laith 

 that is in me. The reason for this second boom, if we may so term 

 it, is this : that a natural hybrid was discovered in some, part of the 

 countr}' out West, to which the name Early Amber was given, from 

 the fact it was a ver}' early varietj- and I suppose gave a light 

 colored sj-rup. The farmers in the ordinar}- routine of farm work 

 found that the syrup made from the Early Amber granulated rapidly 

 and readily. They made their syrup as they had been accustomed 

 to make it for a quarter of a century. Now we have an explanation 

 of it on this chart. The variety that the}- had ordinaril}' grown was 

 a variety almost exact in its habit like this Chinese Sorghum, which 

 goes under the name of Liberian Sorghum in Ohio and Indiana and 

 Illinois. Now this Liberian Soi-ghum is just about a month behind 

 the Early Amber. So that those farmers w^ho have been accustomed 

 to grow this variety, when they got this new seed and worked it up 

 as they did, when it took its turn with the other farm work, when 

 they were ready to work their sorghum the sorghum was ready for 

 them — it had reached that degree of development that the content 

 of sugar in the juice was so great that the sj-rup made from it 

 crystallized readily', and that is all there was of it. I found that 

 at the close of the season, when the examination day by day of 

 these stocks had ceased, there was still remaining enough for several 

 experiments. Those stocks were cut, the juice expressed, and it 

 was treated precisely as sugar cane juices would be treated, and the 

 result was that three of them gave me at the rate of two thousand 

 pounds of sugar to the acre, and one of them gave me at the rate 

 of four thousand pounds of sugar to the acre. So much confidence 

 I have in the result of these experiments that I have not one shadow 

 of doubt but that with ten acres of good land, such land as you 

 would put sugar beets on for example, I could obtain ten tons of 

 sugar. Now I have no idea the average farmer is going to secure 

 such results. I know that in 1879 the average sugar receipts in 

 Louisiana per acre were 1350 pounds, yet, in one of these varieties 



