298 APPENDIX. 
the reader, that in the following considerations we will not distinguish 
between the two plants in all that respects the time of their maturity, 
their leafing, the grating of their stalks, the pressure of the pulp, and 
the use of the residues. They should be treated in the same manner 
throughout. .... . And seeing all the good that is said of the sugar 
sorgho and the articles published in its praise, we do not understand 
why maize is passed by unnoticed. Is this a matter of speculation, or 
a furor for a new product, such as is produced every day with all new 
things. We are ignorant on the subject. We are far from dissuad- 
ing agriculturists from undertaking the cultivation of the sugar sorgho. 
We are much pleased, on the contrary, to give it a decided support, 
and we place it in the first rank among our recent agricultural acquisi- 
tions; but these advantages should not hinder us from rendering to 
each other product, of a similar nature, the justice which is their due. 
While awaiting, then, the generalization of the culture of the sorgho 
in our southern provinces, we beg that the cultivators will distil the 
stalks of the corn. Besides the product in brandy, they will find in 
the residue the means of increasing the food for their stock, in a 
country where it is generally scarce and dear. Let proper attention 
be given to both maize and the sugar sorgho; the results will be about 
the same. The capital point to obtain complete success is to seize 
the exact favorable moment for gathering the stalks. If too soon, 
the plant contains too much mucilage and gum ; if too late, the. seed 
has consumed part of the sugar contained in the stalk ; at least, it is 
so in the maize. 
It is probable that, at a subsequent day, there will be erected in 
the southern districts manufactories for treating the sugar sorgho, 
which we believe fully to be more appropriate for the manufacture of 
sugar than corn, because we judge that its juice contains less of 
mucilage and gum.* The yield of the sugar sorgho being equal to 
* Our author has here made a very important distinction between the maize and 
the sorgho. The sugar of the corn, after the ripening of the seed, is very rapidly and 
considerably reduced; but with the sorgho, if we may judge from the experiments 
made in Algiers by M. Hardy, not only does it not lose in its proportion of sugar by 
standing in the field after it has attained a complete maturity, but, if the tufts be cut 
off, the juice will actually show on the saccharometer a perceptible increase in 
strength.—H. §. O. 
