PREFACE. vu 
Hon. John Y. Mason, our Minister at Paris. To Mr. John W. Reid 
of this city, I am indebted for electrotypes of the cuts of sugar and dis- 
tilling apparatus, and for much valuable information. D. Jay Browne, 
Ksq., of the United States Patent office, has kindly sent me an article 
on the crystallization of the juice of the sorgho, written by him for the 
next volume of the Agricultural Report, and furnished for this work, 
in advance of its publication ; and at various times he has assisted me, 
with advice and information. 
The Complete History of the Culture of the Chinese Sugar Cane in 
the Southern States, is from the pen of D. Redmond, Esq., Editor of 
the “Southern Cultivator,” to whose labors the American public are 
in a great measure indebted for the successful introduction of the 
plant into general cultivation, and for the valuable experiments of 
Governor Hammond and Colonel Peters, which have so fully sustained 
the enthusiastic assumptions of its European friends, as to its ability 
to yield a large quantity of saccharine matter. 
Mr. D. Jay Browne has also kindly placed at my disposal, the 
article containing the Chemical Researches on the Sorgho, by Dr. 
Charles 'T. Jackson, of Boston, one of the State Assayers. The anal- 
ysis of Dr. Jackson will be of interest to scientific agriculturists, as 
affording a clue to the proper manner to apply to the sorgho fields 
when taken in comparison with the quantitative and qualitative analy- 
ses made at the Imperial School of Engineering. 
The article by Aug. A. Hayes, Assayer to the State of Massa- 
chusetts, evinces an amount of research and scientific investigation 
into the composition of the sorgho, not previously equaled in this 
country, so far as I am aware of. 
Thus aided and encouraged by gentlemen of the highest scientific 
and practical attainments in their several professions, the author pre- 
sents this work to the agricultural public, in the sincere desire that 
