98 REPOR! OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
EXPERIMENTS DIN SUGAR-MAKING FROM CORN-STALKS, SORGHUM, ETC. 
The following tabulated results of my experiments are valuable in 
this especially, that they were conducted quantitatively throughout. 
The corn-stalks were from a common field-corn, said to have been a 
eross between a yellow and white. The ears had been plucked from 
the stalks and sold in our own markets as green corn some three weeks 
before the stalks had been cut and brought to me for the making of 
sugar. 
ithe sorghum was a variety known as the Minnesota Early Amber. 
Both corn and sorghum were in a condition of vigorous growth when 
cut, the leaves being green. The seed of the sorghum was sufficiently 
mature to warrant its preservation, and indeed the last lot received 
shelled slightly upon handling. The sorghum had not been planted or 
cultivated so as to produce even a fair average in size, as will be seen 
by the results appended. 
The mill made use of in expressing the juice was an old sorghum-mill 
of common construction, which, through previous use and misuse, had 
been rendered quite unfit to give satisfactory results. After most of our 
experiments below given were concluded, it was repaired, so that after- 
ward its working was very much better, as will be seen by the subse- 
quent results given further on. 
The apparatus used in the experiments, besides a few barrels and pails 
for holding the juice, consisted of a copper tank of the following dimen- 
sions: four feet three inches long; two feet three inches deep; two feet 
three inches wide; a galvanized iron pan nine feet long, eight inches 
deep, three feet six inches wide. ‘This iron pan was surrounded by a 
wooden frame of two-inch plank, so as to support the sides, and each 
pan was placed in brick-work with chimney, and so arranged as to per- 
mit a fire to be kept below it in direct contact with the bottom. In the 
ease of the copper tank the fiame played about the sides also, so as to 
heat the contents more rapidly. The galvanized-iron pan was such as 
could readily be constructed by any ordinary tinsmith or mechanic. 
The copper tank was used for defecation with lime; the galvanized- 
iron pan for evaporation. 
The process made use of in these experiments was in its essential 
features the one recently patented by Mr. F. L. Stewart, Murrysville, 
Westmoreland County, Pa., and which has been described in the report 
of the department for 1877 
The process in brief is as follows: After topping or stripping the corn 
or sorghum, it was passed through the mill, and when sufficient juice 
had been obtained it was heated in the copper tank to a temperature of 
§2° Centigrade—182° Fahrenheit. After the juice had reached this 
temperature there was added to it, with stirring, cream of lime until a 
piece of litmus paper dipped in the juice showed | a purple or bluish-pur- 
ple color. The heat was now raised to the boiling-point, and so soon as 
the juice was in good ebullition the fire was drawn, and a thick seam 
removed from the surface of the juice. 
After a few minutes the sediment from the juice subsided, and by 
means of a syphon the clear liquid was decanted off, leaving a muddy 
sediment which was equal to about one-tenth to one-twentieth of the 
bulk of the juice. This muddy sediment was then drawn off by means 
of a stopcock, and filtered through a plaited-bag filter, and the clear 
filtrate therefrom was added to the liquid previou sly syphoned off. 
The clarified juice, which, during the above operation, is not allowed 
to cool below a temperature of 66° Centigrade, or 156° Fahrenheit, wag 
