152 ANNUAL REPORT. 



ning and to foster this industry. The State can well afford to give 

 it encouragement. 



Williams & Flyun have one of these frame bins that we have 

 heard of, which is a very simple affair, in which they keep the 

 seed. I find now that our Wisconsin farmers and others who 

 are engaged in this industry are giving uj) the stripping of the 

 cane. 



Gen. Le Due. Is the reason that it does not pay ? 



Prof. Henry. The point is to work for economy in the culti- 

 vation, in the handling and in the saving of the product. There 

 is where Germany succeeds in the sugar industry. We can grow 

 fodder so cheaply that we cannot afford to spend the time to 

 handle the blades or to strip the cane. Messrs. Powell and 

 Williams & Flynn told me that they could not afford to have 

 their cane stripped. The defecation with the lime is a little 

 different. This is a point worth remembering in order to see if 

 there is not a way to economize in this particular. 



Upon this matter of saving the seed heads I would say, that 

 we found at Madison that our crop of seed was especially good in 

 1881, and there was one piece that yielded as high as thirty -two 

 bushels of seed to the acre of Minnesota early amber, and the 

 seed weighed fifty pounds to the bushel. 



Mr. Whipple. How was the cane grown? 



Prof. Henry. In hills three feet eight inches one way and four 

 feet the other; with about seven stalks in the hill. It was grown 

 for sugar, not for syrup. But let me tell you that there is a great 

 difference in the seed, or the amount of seed in the heads that 

 is grown; cane heads fill with more variation than wheat heads. 

 That year we had a very heavy seed crop and our cane that 

 yielded over thirty-two bushels to the acre yielded a thousand 

 pounds of sugar; that is we extracted that much. One hundred 

 gallons of syrup, nine hundred and ninety-eight pounds of sugar 

 and thirty-three bushels of seed were the products of an acre, 

 in round numbers, and that was replanted cane at that. It was 

 a very successful little crop. 



Now, I have said that I would not attempt to strip my cane if 

 I could succeed without. The second point is, do not waste the 

 seed. Now, how shall we save it! Save it just as economically 

 as you can. Feed it to your fattening hogs. A good way is to 

 begin early to feed your cane seed; you will be surprised to see 

 how it will help you out. We can keep hogs alive indefinitely 

 on the seed, and by mixing the "skims" they will thrive almost 



