CHINESE SORGHUM. 93 
Chinese do not express the juice from the stalks for the 
purpose of manufacturing molasses or sugar, and they 
manifest surprise when informed such a use is made of it 
in the United States. They make a coarse kind of bread 
from the flower of the seeds of the kauliang, eaten princi- 
pally by the poorer classes. The best kind of Chinese 
whisky, often called Chinese wine, is distilled from the 
seeds. The stalks are used for food or lathing in the 
partitions of houses, for slight and temporary fences, ete. 
During a few years past, many inquiries have been made 
in regard to the manner in which the Chinese manufacture 
sugar and molasses out of the sorghum, but such informa- 
tion is vainly sought of them.” 
When it is remembered that in those parts of Southern 
China in which the tropical cane is grown, the natives do 
not generally use that plant for making sugar; but adopt 
the more primitive practice of peeling and chewing the 
stems, just as the Zulu-Caffres use the imphee in South 
Africa, we need not be surprised to hear that in the 
northern provinces of the empire nothing is known of any 
method of making sugar from sorghum. 
Another author, however, asserts that in the country 
near Shanghai, “sugar is made from the cane which is 
now well known in the United States as the ‘Chinese 
sugar cane,’ and is extensively used in making confections, 
sweetmeats, and preserves, of which the ginger put up at 
Canton in small blue jars is most familiar to us.”* It is 
also said that in 1853 a number of sacks of sorghum sugar, 
of seventy-five pounds weight each, were imported into 
California from China.t 
* “Pive Years in China,” by Charles Taylor, M.D. (former mission- 
ary to China). New York, 1860, p. 131. 
{ E. F. Newberry, Essay on Sorghum. Valley Farmer, 1868. 
