246 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Our population, which is over fifty millions, consumes annually something 

 like two and a half dollars worth of sugar and syrup per capita, making a 

 gross sum of not far from one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. About 

 one-eighth of all this sum is home production, while the remaining seven- 

 eighths must be imported from foreign countries. This supply comes chiefly 

 from the West India Islands, causing a draft of nearly a hundred million dol- 

 lars upon our people. No other commodity that we purchase from abroad 

 assumes such gigantic proportions, consequently none of greater financial 

 importance. And must this drain upon the vitals of our country ever con- 

 tinue? Where are our statesmen that they do not awake to the subject and 

 arouse the country? When the elder Napoleon was at war with the outside 

 world, and like Ishmael of old had "his hand against every man and every 

 man's hand against him," his fruitful genius could take a short furlough 

 from the camp fire and the battle field, wing its way to the halls of legislation, 

 and tliere devise means for his country to supply itself with sugar from the 

 beet. And so finely did this beet sugar industry become established under the 

 wisdom of his counsel that it not only supplied the wants of the home coun- 

 try in time of war, but long afterwards flourished as a staple article of expor- 

 tation in time of peace. But of late years our country abounds in men who 

 wear epaulets and titles, but we have no Napoleons. 



We have said that about one-eighth part of the sugar consumed by our 

 people is of home production. Three quarters of that eighth part, speaking 

 in round numbers, is produced from the "ribbon cane" of the south — and of 

 all that which is produced in the south only nineteen-twentieths is the product 

 of the State of Louisiana alone. Could the area of its production be spread 

 upon a map before you it would be seen that it is confined to less than one- 

 hundredth part of our country's domain. Until a very recent date this speck 

 upon the map of country has been considered the only part of all our ample realm 

 where sugar could successfully be produced. The maple sugar of Vermont, 

 with trifles from a few other States, would be but as dust in the balance, and 

 until recently all efforts to produce sugar from the beet in remunerative quan- 

 tities have proved unsuccessful. Late experiments, however, have conclusively 

 demonstrated that California may yet become a successful field for that 

 industry, and should the efforts now commenced be persevered in the time 

 may yet come when California sugar will assume greater national importance 

 than California gold. Should our government succeed in conquering the 

 Mississippi and keeping its waters within their banks the area of the ribbon 

 cane will doubtless be doubled. And that may yet be done, for, after munifi- 

 ciently expending hundreds of millions in the improvement of northern lakes 

 and rivers, our Congress is at last beginning to turn ics attention to that 

 greatest of all our internal thoroughfares. But while this process is going for- 

 ward our population and consumption will steadily increase, and the question 

 still stares us in the face : Where shall we look for our supply of sugar? That 

 question is now in process of solution, and I now venture to predict that in 

 the course of time, say in twenty-five years from to-night, or about the time 

 that our savans at Washington will probably complete the publication of 

 the census of 1880, our country will be sending sugar to the countries of 

 Europe, side by side with its cotton and its wheat. 



A little over'twenty years ago there began to be introduced into our country 

 a new cereal; it was called sorghum or Chinese sugar cane. Who does not 

 remember having seen it in gardens, and even to-night methinks I can almost 



