376 SORGHUM. 



CHAPTER XI. 



(a.) Waste products from sorfjhuin. 



(&.) Seed, composition, and feeding value. 



(c. ) Bagasse, loss of sugar in. 



(d.) Experiments in saving sugar from bagasse. 



(e. ) Leaves, food value. 



(f.) Bagasse as food, fuel, and as material for paper. 



(r/.) Scums and sediments, value. 



{h.) Sorgluim as a forage plant. 



WASTE PRODUCTS. 



By those who have watched closely the development of the beet 

 sugar industry, it is seen that its successful establishment has, in every 

 case, been intimately connected with the most careful attention to 

 details. Not only has the extraction of the sugar from the beet been 

 brought to the limits of perfection, but entirely new methods have 

 been devised, after long years of investigation, for extracting the 

 largest attainable quantity of sugar from the syrup. The greatest 

 attention has also been given to the utilization of the so-called waste 

 products of the manufacture ; and where these, as an additional source 

 of revenue, are disregarded, the indu.stry has, at best, barely sustained 

 itself, even in those sections where the conditions appear most favora- 

 ble. In fact, to such perfection have all the details of the manufact- 

 ure of the sugar been brought, that tlie chief care appears to be given 

 to these minor points of the industry. The result is, that the beet is 

 practically the only rival of the sugar-cane as a source of sugar for 

 the world. 



It needs but a glance to see that nothing like such minute and 

 careful supervision has been given to the sugar-cane or the sorghum 

 industry. 



Millions of tons of sugar have, during past years, been produced 

 from sugar-cane, by processes so crude and methods so wasteful, that 

 it is safe to say, hardly another great industry in the world would sur- 

 vive such burdens of waste for a single decade. At the present, the 

 sorghum sugar industry is setting out mainly in the course laid down 

 by the sugar-cane manufacturers. As the rejiorts from every section 

 of the country unite to show that none of our common farm crops 

 yield so large a profit as does the production of syrup and sugar from 



