SUGAR FROM SORaHUM. 181 



were told this afternoon, prudence dictates that we be placed upon 

 our guard in time. The time will come, if it has not come already, 

 when the production of corn and wheat in the West at present prices 

 cannot be maintained. At the West, thej- have for 3-ears been pur- 

 suing a wasteful, skimming process upon their lands, and the result 

 is decreasing crops. Take this matter of corn, and, as I said, we 

 shall find ourselves running into the millions. 



We were told this afternoon, how the corn requires phosphoric 

 acid and potash. An average of twenty-one analyses of corn, grown 

 in different parts of the United States, shows that the percentage of 

 mineral matter is almost exactly one and seven-tenths per cent., and 

 nearly all this mineral matter, unfortunately, consists of phosplioric 

 acid and potash ; those two things you see that we especiall}^ desire 

 in a fertilizer. At the prices we pay for those when we get our 

 monej-'s worth, seven cents per pound for potash and twelve cents 

 for phosphoric acid, — the phosphoric acid and potash in our annual 

 corn crop amounts to one hundred and fifteen million dollars, and 

 our entire corn crop brings almost exactly five times that. So that 

 we are selling annualh' in our corn crop an amount of these two 

 constituents — which you in New England are buying, and which 

 they at the West ultimately must buy — equal in value to one-fifth of 

 what the crop brings. So that, if the time comes when to maintain 

 tlie fertilit}' of their lands the3' must return what the crop takes off, 

 there comes off one slice of twenty per cent, for the fertilizers alone. 

 Consequentl}', the importance of this sugar matter is manifest. As 

 3'ou doubtless know, all the sugar comes from the atmosphere. 

 You cannot burn a grain of corn or kernel of rye or wheat without 

 having a certain amount of mineral matter. You might burn a ton 

 of pure sugar and not have a grain of mineral matter remain. So 

 that, we could produce sugar for the world's supply for a thousand 

 years and our land would increase in fertility. 



Mr. C. J. Gilman — As far as you have advanced in 3'our experi- 

 ments have you been able to form a clear and well defined idea as 

 to the expense per pound upon the present processes of the sorghum 

 sugar and sugar from corn-stalks ? 



Prof. Collier — The processes I have used with entirely satisfactory 

 results were identical with those processes used in the manufacture 

 of sugar from sugar cane. Now, they claim in Louisiana and Cuba, 

 that there is no trouble in producing sugars at three cents a pound. 

 I see no reason to doubt but we could produce them even more 



