24. THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
cause of the troubles which at that time convulsed Italy 
from one end to the other, because of want of means on 
his part for continuing the experiments, or because the 
plants were not adapted to the manufacture of sugar, I 
am not able to say; itis probable that all these con- 
spired to militate against the prosecution of his studies. 
But I think it very possible that Dr. Arduino procured 
from Africa the seeds of some one of the varieties of the 
imphee, which required too long time to ripen to allow 
of its being grown in the climate of Italy; and that the 
small amounts of sugar obtained. by him from the plants 
arose from the fact that the maximum of saccharine mat- 
ter is only made present in the Chinese or African sugar 
canes at the moment of their complete maturity. 
M. Louis Vilmorin, in his ‘“‘ Researches,” mentions that 
in a package of seeds from Abyssinia, sent to the Museum 
in 1840, by M. D’Abadie, which contained about thirty 
species or varieties of the sorgho, he had noticed that 
some of the plants were particularly distinguished from 
the others by the sweet flavor of their stalks; but to all 
intents and purposes, and so far as any practical result 
has eventuated, from 1786 until the introduction of the 
Montigny seed and of that of Mr. Wray from Kaffirland, 
there is a complete void in European experience with the 
plant. Considering the question as to whom is due the 
honor of giving the plant to European agriculturists, 
there should be no cause for strife between the partisans 
of the Count de Montigny and Mr. Wray; for it ap- 
pearing, upon the testimony of M. Vilmorin, Dr. Sicard, 
M. Lacoste, and Mr. Wray himself, that the sorgho and 
imphee are not different varieties of the same plant, but 
