LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 239 



STRAW. 



No effort was made to detenu iue the food-value of the straw at the different 

 periods of cutting. The grain so far outranks the straw in money value that 

 the farmer is willing to sacrifice the straw, if thereby he may secure a corres- 

 ponding increase of value in his grain; but the farmer is well aware of the 

 rapid deterioration of the straw by allowing it to stand till the grain is dead- 

 ripe, and if the dead-ripening is attended by no real increase of value in the 

 grain, but an actual loss in the amount of grain, and the straw deteriorates 

 greatly in the meanwhile, lie may conclude that it is best to cut his grain as 

 soon as ripe and thus save himself from needless loss. 



In the hope of doing something toward placing agriculture upon a scientific 

 basis, I offer this contribution to the chemistry of the ripening of wheat. 



In making this investigation I have enjoyed the hearty and efficient coopera- 

 tion of E. F. Kedzie, then my assistant in chemistry, and now Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi, who 

 made all the analyses and otherwise assisted me in a most satisfactory manner. 



SORGHUM SUGAR. 



BY F. S. KEDZIE, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 

 [Read at Galesburgand Armada Institutes.] 



The later statistics show the American people to be the greatest sugar con- 

 sumers of the entire world ; the average being fifty pounds per head annually. 

 Of the amount consumed only one-third is produced in this country, the bal- 

 ance being imported, mainly from the West Indies. The amount of money 

 thus expendecl for foreign sugar is something enormous, and has long ago 

 attracted the attention of political economists to means of increasing the sugar 

 production at home. Attempts have been made to introduce the culture of 

 the sugar beet, and the manufacture of beet sugar in a manner similar to the 

 French and German method. These attempts have uniformly failed to be 

 paying investments, with the single exception of California, on account of the 

 large amount of capital required and the difficulties experienced in raising 

 the beets in sufficient quantity to keep the machinery employed. 



Within the past fi.ve years the making of sugar from sorghum and green 

 corn stalks has attracted the attention vt many skilled and earnest scientific 

 men. Commissioner of Agriculture Le Due and various State Legislators have 

 given their aid and attention to forward the cause of home-made sugar from 

 sorghum. 



Many persons have studied the chemistry of the sorghum cane and its juices 

 from the earliest period of its growth until the cane was dry and the leaves 

 rustled in the late autumn breeze. All kinds of processes known to science 

 and suggested by superstition have been essayed. Patents have been taken 

 out, and mysterious compounds lettered "A" and ''B", in distinction from 

 delusive and unknown "X" and " Y", have been freely offered for sale, with 

 the seductive proviso that you have the "exclusive right to use in your town- 

 ship." , 



