352 ANNUAL REPORT. 



portion of the amount consumed. We imported into this coun- 

 try during the season of 1883, according to the estimates, nearly 

 1,200,000 tons of sugar; while the amount of sugar we made in 

 this country did not altogether exceed 100,000 tons. You see 

 we produce only about one-twelfth of the sugar consumed. 



Where does the sugar come from that we import? A great 

 deal from the tropics, from Cuba, and a great deal from the 

 Sandwich Islands, which comes in free from duty, and we are 

 now importing large quantities of sugar from Germany and 

 France. Think of it; France and Germany, a country exhausted 

 by a thousand years of agriculture, no more suitable in any re- 

 spect for the production of sugar than the United States. The 

 most of the sugar we import is made from the tropical cane, the 

 sugar cane. The sugar they produce in Europe is made exclu- 

 sively from the sugar beet. In the Sandwich Islands the sugar 

 is made from the sugar cane. In this country the sources of 

 sugar are four: the sugar cane as it grows in Louisiana, produc- 

 ing by far the largest amount of sugar; next the sorghum cane, 

 or the sugar beet, and fourth the sugar maple; these are the four 

 sources of sugar to which we must look in this country. ' 



A few years ago the amount of sugar made from sorghum cane 

 could be numbered by hundreds of pounds. The past year has 

 been a very unfavorable one for the production of sugar, but 

 the total amount produced in this country is not far from 1,000,- 

 000 pounds. We may hope with increased skill and means of 

 production the amount or quantity will increase very rapidly. 

 The sorghum sugar factory at Eio Grande, New Jersey, has 

 passed through three years of successful life, producing large 

 amounts of sugar, and the crop has not been injured by the 

 frost. I have taken the records of the signal service and traced 

 a series of isothermal lines which indicate those portions of the 

 country whose climate is the same, as far as heat is concerned, 

 as Eio Grande. The lines run in a northwesterly direction, 

 . . . crossing the Mississippi Eiver near Minneapolis, passing 

 out through Northern Minnesota. The conclusion is that all 

 this vast Northwestern country is as favorable to the growth 

 and maturity of the sorghum cane as the country on the shores 

 of New Jersey. I think all of you will bear witness that the 

 general result is that the early amber cane ripens in this whole 

 region. Ninety days of good growing weather is sufficient 

 to mature the earlier varieties of the sorghum cane. But there 

 is another period as important as that of growth to be consid- 



