36 SUPPLEMENT. 
LETTERS FROM GOV. HAMMOND. 
“Dear Srr— “ Repcuirre, November 26th, 1857. 
“T received to-day, the Southern Cultivator for December. It con- 
tains two letters from Mons. Vilmorin, denouncing your imphees in a 
manner that appears to me malicious ; and, as | know his statements 
are false as regards the imphee grown in this latitude, I deem it due 
to truth and to you, to give my testimony against them. Your imphee 
came here too late to allow a perfectly satisfactory comparison to be 
instituted between that and sorgho. But I do not remember that in 
any attempt we made to compare them, the results were in favor of 
the sorgho. Certainly, most of the varieties of imphee have a larger 
stalk and produce more juice; none, I believe, are smaller. As to 
‘red rot,’ which so seriously affected the sorgho, I do not think it ap- 
peared at all in more than one kind of imphee, and that had ripened 
long before we reached it in our operations. I am sure the im- 
phee is not more subject to the ‘red rot,’ than the sorgho, and was 
not so much affected by it this year here. As to the per centage of 
saccharine matter in the juice, I saw the saccharometer mark eighteen 
once, and frequently fourteen to sixteen per cent. I believe the sorgho 
never reached seventeen per cent. _ 
‘From my experience of this year, I should be unwilling to say that 
the imphee is decidedly superior to the sorgho. But I am equally un- 
prepared to say that any single variety of imphee is inferior to the 
sorgho. I shall try all of them again and again before I determine 
which is the very best. 
« As you say Mr. Vilmorin obtained no pure imphee seed from you, 
T am inclined to think he has not made his expiriments with pure seed. 
Certainly the seed he sent to this country last spring for imphee, at 
$10 per pound, was thoroughly mixed with durra corn ; and one par- 
cel that he sent as Vim-bis-chu-a-pa, was all durra, as I am informed. 
“T have not, as you well know, any interest in the sale of imphee 
seed, or anything made from imphee, and you are well aware of my 
aversion to having my name in the papers, but you can show this letter 
to any one you please, and, if absolutely necessary, publish it. 1 shall 
probably put the substance in the next Cultivator. Yours very truly, 
“LL. Wray, Esq.” “ J. H. Hammonp. 
