ISST.] Sugar from the African Sorghum. 251 



m«ns of ribbon colored with the dye from the hulls of the sorgho 

 seed, and stated that he had scraped off some of the waxy efflores- 

 cence from the stalk, and it burned with a clear flame, Mr. Wray 

 said this production would not be of consequence, as the small 

 quantity obtainable and the tediousness of the operation of scrap- 

 ing it from the stalks, would much more than counterbalance any 

 profit from its sale. He thought the computations made by Mr. 

 Hardy, the Director of the Imperial Nursery at Hanima, Algiers, 

 could not be considered as at all practically valuable. 



The seed heads should be thoroughly dried before the stripping of 

 the seed is attempted, and can then be threshed out with flails in 

 like manner as wheat, barley or other grain. 



Professor Mapes inquired if the sap in the stalks will sour on 

 exposure to the atmosphere, as is the case with the Louisiana cane, 

 and if the crystallizable property was injured? 



Mr. Wray stated that on one occasion he had been absent from 

 his estate when the canes were ready to be harvested, and his Kaffirs, 

 thinking he would return within a day or two, had cut up and stack- 

 ed his entire crop. He was not able to return, however, until after 

 the expiration of a fortnight, and he then found that about one inch 

 of either end of the stalks had soured; so, without further loss of 

 time, he had set his men to work to remove their positions, and when 

 the juice from them was boiled down, it made quite as good sugar as 

 any previous sample. 



The Zulu Kaffirs put the stalks into pits which they dig in the 

 ground, and preserve them perfectly for several months. 



In regard to the density of the sap, Mr. Wray adverted to a trial 

 which had been made in Martinique, upon the estate of the Count 

 de Chazelle, the object of which was to decidethe comparative den- 

 sities of the sugar-canes from the celebrated Grand Terre districts 

 and of Mr. Wray's Imphees, both of which had been grown by 

 the Count. The result was that the latter showed a density superior 

 to the former by three and one-half degrees. The sugar cane gave 

 V deg. Baume. and the Imphee lOj deg. This richness is quite re- 

 markable, for ordinary Louisiana cane does not average higher than 

 7| to 8, if we remember aright, and it shows what we may in fu- 

 ture expect from the introduction of this valuable plant to the do- 

 main of our national agriculture. 



The quantity of juice to be obtained from the stalks was depend- 

 ent upon the power of the mill. Count de Beauregard had sixty 



