J. S. LOVERING’S EXPERIMENTS. 
A DETAILED account of Experiments and Observations upon the Sor- 
ghum Saccharatum, or Chinese Sugar Cane, made with the view off 
determining its value as a sugar-producing plant, from September 
28, to December 20, 1857, at Oakhill, Philadelphia County, Pa. By 
JosEPH S. Lovertne. a 
Tue introduction of this plant into the United States, and the hope 
of producing sugar from it at the North, profitably, have excited such 
universal interest, that it has this year been planted in almost every 
State in the Union; and as the season has advanced, the opinions 
early expressed by many intelligent and scientific experimentalists, 
that it contains no crystallizable sugar, have apparently been confirmed 
by later trials. A few crystals, it is true, have been obtained in one 
or two instances, but all hope of producing sugar from it profitably 
seems to have been abandoned. 
My object in making the following experiments has been to throw 
what light I could upon this important question, and, in the event of 
the result proving favorable, to give such a formula as would enable 
the uninitiated to proceed with confidence of success. They have 
been pursued without any attempt at extraordinary production, 
either in the cultivation of the cane or the development of its proper- 
ties ; on the contrary, the experiments were made upon small quanti- 
ties, under many disadvantages that would not occur in large opera- 
tions, and consequently with results less favorable. 
The series being completed, perhaps the best method of communi- 
cating the results and imparting the knowledge obtained to the public, 
will be by giving the following extracts from my notes, made as the 
work proceeded. They will show-the progress of the development of 
the sugar in the stalk, and its decline, with many other interesting 
facts. 
EXTRACTS. 
On the 10th of May I planted about half an acre, on upland of good 
quality, such as would yield, in ordinary seasons, fifty to sixty bushels 
Indian corn to the acre. The rows four feet apart, and the plants in- 
tended to be six inches apart in the rows, but which, on taking off the 
