2"; 2 BOAED OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of, has a mill that he put up that cost him over six hundred 

 dollars. After reading the lectures of Prof. Collier, he went 

 into it and spent two years in developing it. He has a pro- 

 cess of treating the juice before it is boiled down with lime- 

 water, which kills this acid, or " tang," as we call it. Treated 

 in that way, it will granulate, and that is the only way it can 

 be made to granulate, as I understand it ; and it removes the 

 objection that it tastes like herb tea. The syrup that was 

 formerly made from the old sorghum tasted like herb tea. 

 There was a vegetable taste, an unpleasant taste, which is 

 gotten rid of by treating it with lime-water. 



Mr. Bliss. I should have said that Mr. Havens was of- 

 fered, at private houses where he delivers his milk, a dollar a 

 gallon for his syrup, and at the stores, seventy-five cents a 

 gallon ; but he made but little, just for his own use. 



Mr. Wetherell. It will be remembered by some present, 

 that this subject was referred to a special committee of the 

 American Academy of Science ; that the committee reported, 

 and that one of them. Prof. Silliman, wrote a letter to the 

 New York Tribune which was published last spring, stating 

 that that committee reported in favor of this amber sugar 

 cane, and of the experiments made by Dr. Collier of the de- 

 partment at Washington ; but their report which they made 

 was not published ; why, nobody seemed to know. It is in 

 the department at Washington. 



I am exceedingly glad to hear what I have heard to-day on 

 that subject, and with regard to the sorghum referred to of 

 the older and coarser kind, it was said that it made grape su- 

 gar or glucose, as known to the chemists, and it could not be 

 granulated. Now, we hear it stated here to-day (I knew it 

 before) that there is a process of granulating, and that as 

 good sugar is made, and that it sells in the Philadelphia market 

 as well, as the sugar made on the Louisiana plantations. I 

 think what we have heard to-day, and what stands upon that 

 table, are hopeful omens in the line of improvement and ad- 

 vancement. And I would say, still further, that because 

 some farmers denounce it is no sufficient reason why we should 



