82 GRASSES AXD FORAGE PLANTS. 



opportunities of observation upon it, and have met many indi- 

 viduals from different latitudes who have cultivated it with 

 great success, and numerous experiments upon it are still 

 in progress, which will determine its relative value and its 

 modes of cultivation. It is, undoubtedly, very rich in saccha- 

 rine matter in all latitudes within the geographical range of 

 Indian corn. It has been said that the percentage of sugar 

 decreases somewhat in the higher latitudes ; but this does not 

 seem to have been established as a fact, and the opposite con- 

 clusion, will, very probably, be arrived at, even though the 

 percentage of sugar found to be crystallizable should be greater 

 in more tropical regions. 



The plant grown in Massachusetts the past year contained 

 about twenty-three per cent, of sugar, while that grown in the 

 District of Columbia contained but fourteen per cent. And 

 tliis accords with what we know of Indian corn, since it is 

 pretty well established that the corn grown in high latitudes is 

 richer in saccharine matter than that grown at the South. 

 The meal of northern corn is also better, and will bring at all 

 times a considerably higher price in the market. 



Of the Chinese sugar cane about seven-eighths of the whole 

 plant consist of juice, especially when grown in a southern 

 latitude where the juice is somewhat more abundant, the cane 

 being more succulent there ; and we may readily credit the 

 Btatement that vinegar has been made from this juice at the 

 rate of fifteen hundred gallons to the acre. 



"When cut for sugar the most favorable time is just after it 

 has passed the blossom, or when the seed is " in the milk," and 

 if raised for this purpose the time of planting should be later 

 than that of Indian corn. The leaves are stripped off and the 

 stalk is crushed in any convenient mills or rollers, though more 

 suitaljlc mills will undoubtedly be constructed. 



Should it be found on more careful trial to be equal to what 

 is reported of it, it will make an entire revolution in the sugar 

 growing interests of the country, and thus become a plant of 

 great national importance. It is said that the crop of sugar 

 raised in Louisiana has gradually decreased from nearly five 

 hundred thousand hogsheads in 1853, to less than one hundred 

 thousand, in 1856, while the price of sugar and molasses — a 

 greater amount of which is consumed in this, than in any other 



