NECESSITY FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 17 



to do with the material prosperity of the country, seems hardly a 

 question admitting an intelligent doubt. Already Xew Jersey and 

 Massachusetts have by means of bounties stimulated experiments in 

 this direction, which, in New Jersey at least, have already led to most 

 important results. 



New Jersey, in an " Act to encourage the manufacture of sugar in the 

 state," provides, that one dollar shall be paitl by the state to the farmer 

 for each ton of material out of which crystallized cane sugar has 

 actually been obtained; and it provides, also, a further bounty of one 

 cent per pound to be paid to the manufacturer for each pound of cane 

 sugar made from such material. Massachusetts passed an act pro- 

 viding that one dollar be paid for each 2,000 pounds of sorghum cane, 

 or sugar beets, used in the state for the manufacture of sugar. 



Several of the states have, by appropriations, provided for the con- 

 tinuance of investigations looking to the economical production of 

 sugar. The general government has for the past two years, in spite of 

 a persistent and determined opposition from a source as surprising as 

 it has been inexplicable, continued to make appropriations for the 

 prosecution of those investigations, which have already resulted in the 

 accumulation of most of the facts which are thus far established be- 

 yond question, and which have been recorded in these pages. 



In the words of the Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 " the fruits of this policy of the general government are already be- 

 ginning to show themselves in the decided success which has attended 

 the production of sugar from sorghum on a commercial scale in the 

 few cases in which the rules of good practice, evolved especially by 

 the researches made at the laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, 

 have been intelligently followed," and they conclude their report in 

 these words: "The sugar producing industry of the whole country, 

 both that of the tropical cane in the South and the sorghum over a far 

 wider area, will derive yet greater benefits from the continued in- 

 vestigations of the chemist of this department, to whose former work 

 we are already so much indebted," 



A few of the points which are at present awaiting investigation, 

 may be briefly summarized. Even granting that the questions already 

 settled have sufficed to place this new industry upon a safe and profita- 

 ble footing, it by no means follows that it may not be made far more 

 profitable. To this end there yet remains a vast amount of work de- 

 mandiucr further investigation. 



The unanimous testimony of sugar manufacturers conclusively 

 proves, that, at present, fully one-third the sugar present in the cane 

 or sorghum is lost through the imperfect methods for its extraction. 



