CHAPTER V. 
SUGAR AND SUGAR MAKING. 
A WEST INDIAN SUGAR PLANTATION—CUTTING—CRUSHING—BOILING. 
It is useless to conceal the fact, that, despite its great 
excellence as a forage crop, and despite its other manifold 
uses, the public are looking to the sorgho as a SUGAR 
PLANT with more expectation and apprehension than in 
any other light. Until the present feverish excitement 
shall have subsided into more reasonable and practical 
channels, it must be expected that when the vivid dreams 
of sugar planting in garden spots and on five acre corn 
fields, now, alas, so prevalent, are dispelled, and men 
begin to realize that a good sugar plantation, with appro- 
priate buildings and machinery, costs a vast deal of money, 
much dissatisfaction will be experienced and publicly 
manifested. or this reason, and to shield from blows 
and insults a promising agricultural staple, I have chosen 
to consider it, first, as a forage crop. 
As yet, the sugar made from the juice of the sorgho 
has been in a very small way—not more than a few 
ounces, at most, at one time—and as this chapter is writ- 
ten before the earliest of this season’s crops have been 
worked up, I cannot speak of sorgho sugar making on 
a large scale, but must defer such remarks to appear in 
the Appendix, after I have been to South Carolina and 
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