22 SUGAR AND SUGAR PLANTS. 
Some variety of imphee had been introduced into Europe 
as early as a century ago, but it was evidently inferior to 
the imphee cane now cultivated in this country. Its seeds 
were described to be of a clear brown color. In 1766 it 
was experimented upon for the extraction of sugar by one 
Pietro Arduino, at Florence, in Italy,* but with what suc- 
cess we are not informed. 
The following extract from Reese’s Family Encyclope- 
dia (p. 727), no doubt refers to the same or a closely allied 
variety : 
“A large grass (Holcus cafer), brought from the south 
of Africa, has begun to be cultivated in some parts of 
Italy, Bavaria, and Hungary for sugar, and what is made 
from it equals cane sugar.” 
M. Vilmorin also says, that in a collection of plants 
sent to the Museum of Natural History, at Paris, in 1840, 
by M. d’Abadie, there were thirty kinds of sorghum, among 
which he particularly recognized several plants having 
stems of a saccharine flavor. f 
The almost total seclusion from foreign intercourse 
of that portion of the Chinese Empire in which sorghum 
is grown, has left us well-nigh destitute of information 
respecting our most important variety, if we except some 
scattered waifs, which are generally too meager to serve 
any useful purpose. 
The Rev. Justus Doolittle, whose book on the “ Social 
Life of the Chinese” has been lately issued, says : 
‘The so-called Chinese sugar cane or sorghum is grown 
very extensively in Northern China, and is known among 
foreigners as a kind of millet—the Barbadoes millet. The 
Chinese name for it is Kauliang. ** * +. The 
* Mason’s Circular, Dec. 10, 1856. 
+ Mason’s Circular, Dec. 10, 1856. { Harper & Bros., 1866, p. 43. 
