JOMAL OF AGRICPmiAL RESEARCH 



Vol. XVIII Washington, D. C, October i, 191 9 No. i 



NOTES ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE SORGHUM 



PLANT^ 



By J. J. WiLLAMAN, Plant Chemist, R. M. West, formerly Assistant Chemist, D. O. 

 Spri^ST^RSBach, formerly Research Assistant, and G. E. Holm, Research Assistant, 

 Division of Agricultural Biochemistry, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station 



I.— INTRODUCTION 



Since 1877, when the United States Department of Agriculture under- 

 took the investigation of sorghum {Sorghum vtilgare) as a source of crys- 

 tallized sugar, many thousands of analyses of sorghum juice, from many 

 different varieties, have been made and published. As a result, there is a 

 well-established fund of knowledge concerning the kinds and quantities 

 of sugars in the juice, especially for the more temperate regions of the 

 United States. Considerable work has been done in this and in other 

 countries on the effect of removing the seed heads on the composition of 

 the juice. Also a little work has been done on the practices followed in 

 the manufacture of sorghum sirup. However, when one of the present 

 writers, R. M. West, undertook in 191 2 to place the sorghum industry 

 in Minnesota on a better economic and scientific basis, the need for fur- 

 ther chemical investigations was seen at once. It was apparent (i) that, 

 considering the effect of climatic factors on the composition of the cane, 

 more exact knowledge was needed concerning the behavior of sorghum 

 grown in the most northern limit of its range; (2) that the utilization of 

 the cane somewhat prior to maturity, and very often after being killed 

 by frost, would be necessary in order to lengthen the milling season as 

 much as possible ; (3) that the methods of defecation and evaporation in 

 vogue were decidedly in need of improvement and standardization; (4) 

 that for economic reasons the small-scale manufacture of sorghum sirup, 

 with inefficient mills, little or no defecation, and slow boiling, would 

 have to give way to large-scale production or the rapid decrease in pro- 

 duction of sirup, as witnessed for the last thirty years, would no doubt 

 continue. The investigations at this Station resulted in the accumula- 

 tion of considerable data of both scientific and practical interest. The 



' Published with the approval of the Director as Paper 170, Journal Series, Minnesota Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station. 



Journal of Agricultural Research, Vol. XVIII, No. i 



Washington, D. C. Oct. i, 1919 



se Key No. Minn. -3 9 



(I) 



