AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 191 



of a few rods square, conceive tlie idea that large fortunes may be made in 

 cultivating it for sugar in their district; and, without apparatus, capital, 

 or especially experience, they nevertheless count on great results. A 

 single season's practical trial will suffice to undeceive them, and they will 

 then be ready to take a sensible view of the real value of the plant, and 

 the proper mode to make it avaihxble. 



The national value of the sorgho is shown in its adaptability to so wide 

 a range of territory. As a forage ?nd syrup crop, it will yield from Maine 

 to Texas. It is not injured by frosts which would kill Indian corn ; and 

 as for the summer drouth, why the hotter the weather the more it seems to 

 flourish. And here we have one of its very greatest recommendations. 



There is a season of the year when the excessive heat of the sun some- 

 times completely parches our pasture lots, and causes the corn leaves to 

 curl and droop. Just at the time when our animals are taxed with heavy 

 labor, and when fresh green food is most necessary for their comfort ; just 

 when our cows are in their greatest flow of milk and need succulent pas- 

 ture to maintain it ; just when the roots of the grasses in the pasture by 

 close cropping are exposed to the fierce heat and killed, and the next year's 

 crop seriously lessened; just at this time, the Chinese Sugar Cane grows 

 and thrives, and elaboi-ates its saccharine juices, more rapidly than at any 

 other time of the year. It strikes its roots deep into the moist cool sub- 

 soil, and obtains abundant moisture. The chemical transformations of the 

 gases into starch, and sugar, and woody fibre, are more active as the dog 

 star increases, and the farmer may be completely relieved from all the wonted 

 ill efi"ects of the drought, by having a field sown broadcast with sorgho, and 

 at this hot season cutting it up and feeding it to his animals. One acre of 

 the dried up pasture, if it had been sown with sorgho for fodder, would 

 now give sustenance to thirty head of cattle for forty-five days. I say 

 this confidently, for I can point you to a case where it was actually done, 

 and give you the exact figures. In this respect, the sorgho bears an 

 analogy to Indian corn, similar to that between the turnip and the man- 

 gold wurzel, the English farmers finding that the latter is unaffected by 

 heats similar to that of the past season, which proved very destructive to 

 their turnips. 



The burthen of green fodder which may be cut on a single acre sown 

 broadcast with sorgho, is immense, forty tons having actually been 

 obtained in France ; and in this country 19,844 lbs. of dry fodder, the 

 weight being taken after the stalks had been drying for three months. 



I have considered it first as a forage crop, from a desire to show that, 

 entirely ignoring the question of sugar, syrup, and alcohol production, we 

 have here a great point in its favor to fall back vipon. But I would not be 

 understood as wishing to undervalue its other capabilities ; on the con- 

 trary, we should, with all due conservatism and moderation, set them pro- 

 minently before us in estimating the national value of the cane. Our 

 Patent Office Report for 1855 says, that "without wishing to present the 

 question in an extravagant light, it may be stated that this crop is capa- 



