190 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Kaffer sugar cane, or Siveet reed. It was difficult to obtain tte seed from 

 it because the cultivation of it picked off the seed spikes before they were 

 ripe, (except that left to ripen for seed,) to increase the saccharine in the 

 stalks. He however sent a small bag of the ripe seed to Mr. Adamson, 

 and also a sample of sugar which he made from it. He supposed it might 

 yield 500 lbs. per acre, while sugar cane yields twice as much and stands 

 on the ground two seasons, while the Kaffer reed stands but one season. 

 But the Kaffer reed is comparatively easier of culture and less liable to 

 casualties, so that it will perhaps appear to come nearer in value to the 

 sugar cane than it seems at first view, we arc disposed to admit. 



Chairman. — Chinese sugar cane is the first question to-day. 



Henry S. Olcott. — We propose to-day, Mr. Chairman, to consider the 

 Chinese sugar cane in a national point of view ; as a great staple crop 

 which, from unostentatious beginnings, but with amazing rapidity, has 

 pushed its way into a position of real national importance. It would be 

 difficult to find throughout the whole range of cultivated plants, one which 

 of equal value to this has had a parallel history. We have in our time 

 seen almost the whole nation mad upon the subject of silk worm culture, 

 and fortunes made and lost in a week in speculations with the Mortis Mul- 

 ticaulis ; and in a past generation the value of immense estates was paid 

 for a single tulip bulb during the prevalence of the tulipomania in Holland. 

 But in both of these eases the speculation was based upon plants of but 

 very limited use, and that false value once removed, the deluded victims 

 had nothing left to realize upon. The bulb was fit only to please the cul- 

 tivated eye of a florist, and the discarded mulberry tree would not even 

 make good cord-wood. 



When I first published a translation of Louis Vilmorin's pamphlet, the 

 sorgho was comparatively unknown in this country ; and when shortly af- 

 terwards I more directly called public attention to the plant, it was widely 

 hinted that a parallel to the Morns Midticaiilis and Kohar Potato hum- 

 bugs was about being introduced. The idea that from one of the same 

 plant various alcoholic products, as well as sirup, sugar, vinegar, paper, 

 starch, and dye stuffs, could be, and had been produced, seemed ridiculous. 

 Some editors amused themselves greatly thereat, and strove to throw con- 

 tempt upon the whole thing. Time, however, Mr. Chairman, has proved 

 that it is well not to judge too hastily. In three seasons the area under 

 cultivation has increased from five acres to more than o«e hundred thou- 

 sand; and so much sirup has been made in the various sections of countrj'', 

 that it has been claimed that in Illinois sorgho sirup is one of the very 

 first crops in point of value already. 



It is almost impossible to take up an agricultural journal from any part 

 of the United States, which does not contain some certificate of successful 

 sorgho culture. And it is quite certain that with this year's experience to 

 aid us, the next we shall be enabled to record far better results. 



Now there is not the slightest doubt but that the value of this plant is 

 by many over estimated. Farmers making a first experiment on a patch 



