AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 193 



has come under my observation, and in every case where I could get at the 

 details and sift the evidence, I have found that if poisoned, the animals 

 had been fed with very small plants, scarcely a foot in height. At the 

 same time, and since, this same cultivator had given to his cattle sorgho 

 stalks, and has been very well satisfied with its use. I advised several 

 French journalists to investigate the several cases, before laying them 

 before the public, but they did not choose to do so, preferring, as is their 

 wont, to make a great noise about it." 



Now, looking at .the plant in the light of its saccharine productions, I 

 think we shall find abundant reasons for congratulating ourselves with 

 having been instrumental in introducing it to public notice. There was a 

 time when it was not believed that the sorgho and imphee contained 

 crystallizable sugar, and when so great a chemist as Dr. Augustus A. 

 Hayes declared that his microscopes and evaporating glasses, proved the 

 existence only of glucose in the juice. But those theories have now been 

 exploded, and Dr. Hayes has himself written for my book, " Sorgho and 

 Imphee," a very candid retraction of his former assumptions, and claims 

 to have discovered a new fact in chemistry, no less an one than the actual 

 co7iversion of grape sugar into true cane crystals, in the juice of sorgho. 



Be this as it may, our friend Lovering, at Philadelphia, has made as 

 beautiful cane sugar as ever left the shores of the " Queen of the Antilles," 

 or rejoiced the heart of a Louisiana planter. And, profiting by his published 

 statements, many others, in various parts of the United States, have this year 

 duplicated his success. If this be so, it will be asked, " Will not the pro- 

 duction of northern and north-western sugar seriously affect the imports 

 from abroad V It will certainly have its influence, but for many years, 

 the planters in the Mauritius, in Cuba, and in the Straits settlements, may 

 enjoy their rest undisturbed ; for rest assured that so long as they, with 

 their slave laborers, can put sugars on board vessels at three cents per 

 pound, and make a living profit, we northern men cannot compete with 

 them to any great extent. But, we shall find this to be the case. Our 

 small farmers will use the spare time of their men, and their families, to 

 make enough sorgho and imphee syrup to last throughout the winter. The 

 more careful and intelligent ones will make sugar, and thus, in many hun- 

 dreds of families in districts removed from the sea-board, no sugar, or at 

 any rate, only the best qualities, will be purchased at the store. This 

 increased production will, by degrees, have its eifect upon the prices of for- 

 eign sugars, and if the tide of immigration should materially diminish, it 

 would react to a considerable extent upon the sugar growers of the tropics. 



I think we shall see, at no distant date, large mills erected in the centres 

 of agricultural districts, to which the crops of small farmers will be car- 

 ried for manufacture ; but there is no doubt but that a vast number of small 

 mills will be purchased by single farmers for their sole use. The editor of 

 the North-Westerii Prairie Farmer, in a very candid article, "says that 

 he believes that in five years the north-west will be a large exporter of 



[Am. Inst.J 13 



