174 THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
common corn; but where he obtained his analysis, I am 
not informed. He says that the real use of the sorgho 
is not for bread-making, but it should be eaten on the 
farm in the form of broth and soups for the laborer, or to 
be boiled up in quantities and given for fattening pigs 
and cattle. 
DYE STUFFS. 
Previous to the receipt of the pamphlets from Messrs, 
Hedges, Free, & Co., which were sent to them by his 
Excellency our Minister at Paris, I had seen in my re- 
searches after the facts collated by French experimenters 
and published in the French journals, occasional mention 
of the experiments of Dr. Sicard of Marseilles, in pro- 
curing from the hulls of the seed a tint for dyeing; but 
not the slightest clue was given as to how the dye was 
produced. Thinking it an interesting aspect of the 
sorgho culture, I was anxious to duplicate, if possible, 
his success; and to this end made various laboratory 
experiments with alcohol, sulphuric ether, the various 
acids, boiling the hulls in a retort with oxalic acid, 
muriate of tin, alum, dilute acids, and plain water, and 
obtained a number of tints of greater or less brilliancy. 
Of these one was a deep purple, obtained by simply 
boiling the hulls in pure water for about fifteen minutes ; 
another, a beautiful rose colored fluid, was made by 
boiling the hulls of another sample (received from 
France) in very dilute sulphuric acid, a few drops of the 
acid toa pint of water being sufficient. And, by dropping 
into the pure water in which the hulls were being boiled 
