530 The "Sorghum" as a Sugar Plant, etc. pDoccmber, 



been resorted to. in order successfully to granulate the saccbarine 

 matter extracted, but as yet without success. 



We will quote what our reporter from the Patent Office has to say 

 on this subject just one year after, when, as may well be supposed* 

 all the chemical skill which our Agricultural Department at Washing- 

 ton could bring into requisition, has been taxed to the utmost: " The 

 manufacture of"iBugar from the Sorgho, as well as from the tropical 

 cane, is beset with difficulties, arising not only from the extreme 

 liability and rapid change of the juice to acidify from exposure to 

 the atmosphere as it runs from the crushing mill, but often from the 

 unripe state of the plant itself. 



" Hence, in order to insure success, it is necessary that the proceaa 

 be conducted under certain conditions., ni'des of neutralizing the free 

 acid, contained in the juice, and the removal of the albuminous matter 

 previous to the evaporation and crystalizationy Certainly an experience 

 fully verified by all who have experimented upon the juice of this 

 ijew plant, yet as devoid of any practical information as for one to 

 direct you to fly, without providing you with wings. In truth there is 

 neither the way nor the means of performing the proposed object. 

 You read on, and you have presented some very curious microscopic 

 observations in regard to the structure of the Sorghum, interesting to 

 the physiologist, but to the sugar-maker of no value whatever. Then, 

 after mentioning the difficulties that have beset the path of the sugar- 

 maker in all past time, and the signal triumphs of science, our au- 

 thor winds up his somewhat learned article by expressing his confi- 

 dence that the same skill directed by the philosopher's stone — 

 "Science" — through the instrumentality of chemistry will yet make 

 suo-ar from the Sorgho and thereby be productive of the happiest re- 

 sults. 



Here, then, is the whole story told in brief. This plant, ushered in 

 with such a flourish of trumpets as a sugar-producer, has failed as 

 yet to meet the high expectations and promises in advance claimed 

 for it, at least so far as producing sugar is concerned. 



Let us for a moment examine, in the light of facts, the results 

 which have been furnished us of its saccharine properties and prod- 

 ucts ; compared with those of the southern sugar cane, with which, 

 if ever successful in these respects, it must come in competition. — 

 We find in Harper — 7th volume, page 759 — in an article on sugar and 

 the sugar region of Louisiana, by T. B. Thorpe, among other facts and 



