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PREFACE. LIBRARY 
tta HW DEIN 
So many wonderful discoveries and inventions have, from time to 
time, been brought before the American public, and have been so 
puffed and belauded by their sanguine and imaginative introducers, 
that a really cautious and sober minded man, mindful of these constantly 
recurring illusions, is not unnaturally prone to receive with suspicion 
and even to disbelieve statements, however true they may be, should 
they seem to promise more than ordinary advantage and profit from 
the cultivation of a new crop. 
As I am well aware of this existing feeling, I am the more anxious 
to lay before my readers the fact, that the subject of this work, the 
Chinese Sugar Cane, has been fairly before the scientific world for 
some three or four years past; and its various claims have been sub- 
mitted to most rigid scrutiny. 
In Europe it has engaged the attention of the most eminent agri- 
culturists, chemists, sugar makers, and other competent authorities ; 
whilst in our own land it has been made the study of some of our 
most respected and trustworthy citizens, who have made fair trial of 
it, under various circumstances, and have stated the results obtained 
in various sections of the country, attaching to these statement their 
names, as a guaranty of their rigid exactness. So vouched for, then, 
~ the value of the “Holcus saccharatus” cannot reasonably be con- 
—_ sidered a doubtful fact, nor one fostered by sanguine minds for inter- 
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