THE SUGAR CONTENT OF .MAIZE STALKS. 



By George Neville Blackshaw. B.Sc, F.C.S. 



In recent years much attention has been directed to the 

 discovery of economic uses to which the maize plant may be 

 put, other than those for which the crop is now cultivated. At 

 the present day maize is grown more particularly for use as 

 cattle food in the green state and in the form of ensilage, and 

 for the production of grain which is chiefly employed as a feed 

 for live stock, for the manufacture of commercial glucose and 

 alcohol, and for human consumption in the shape of meal and 

 refined products. 



The institution of new markets for what is regarded as 

 one of our staple products is surely a matter of vast importance 

 to this country, and endeavours to extend the commercial possi- 

 bilities of this great cereal will in time, it is hoped, be brought 

 to a successful issue. 



In a short paper dealing with tbe sugar content of maize 

 stalks, which I contributed at the meeting of this Association 

 in Bulawayo last year,* it was pointed out that the idea of 

 manufacturing sugar from the juice of maize stalks was by 

 no means new ; that, in fact, a factory was established in 

 France about the year 1850 where large quantities of sugar 

 were manufactured from this source, but that the project proved 

 unsuccessful owing to the development of the beet sugar 

 industry. 



In the year 1881, Collier, who was then acting as Chemist 

 to the United States Department of Agriculture, in a series of 



* Rept. S.A. Assoc, for Adv. of Sc, Bulawayo, 1912, pp. 269-273. 



