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they could not prevent it if it had been desired, for the cane grows wild in 

 every part of the country. 



Mr. Olcott did not think it at all a good practice to pull out the heads, 

 for he had seen in Georgia and South Carolina stalks so treated, on which 

 the following curious result was produced. The seed head being removed, 

 the vigor of the plant was turned to the production of small branches, 

 which shot up from each joint of the stalk, and the cane was rendered 

 unfit for crushing. 



Professor Nash thought the national value of sorgho and impliee, as 

 sugar producers, depended upon the great physiological question, how much 

 sugar should be eaten by a man. An excessive quantity would prove 

 detrimental rather than otherwise. 



The chairman said he recollected the investigation made to determine this 

 point, by the celebrated Dr. Lyon Playfair, in London, some years ago. 

 It was found that a full grown man in a state of health, required sixty- 

 two ounces of food per week, if all his food were reduced to a solid state ; 

 and that of this quantity two-thirds must be of a carbonaceous nature, 

 either starch or sugar, to furnish the material for combustion in his lungs, 

 and keep up the proper degree of animal warmth. The remaining one- 

 third must be of nitrogenous or flesh-forming character. 



Professor Nash thought too much sugar was not good ; the ill eifeets of 

 excessive quantities are to be noticed in the constitutions of pampered 

 children of rich parents. He thought that Mr. Olcott had omitted in his 

 calculations, the amount of domestic maple sugar, which amounted to a 

 large quantity in the aggregate. The maple sugar of Vermont is absorbed 

 by Boston refiners to make the better qualities of sugar. 



Prof. Mapes said that this did not amount to the thousandth of one per 

 cent of the sugar annually refined in the United States. As to the nutri- 

 tive value of sugar, it was shown in the fat, sleek condition of the negroes 

 and animals during the boiling season in Cuba. At this period they sub- 

 sist almost entirely upon it, and at no time of the year are they in such 

 perfect condition. The Emperor of China makes it a duty of the men of 

 his body guard to eat a certain quantity of sugar every day to keep them 

 fat, fat being their greatest recommendation. If he were there, he did not 

 doubt but that his corpulence would ensure his being made at the very least 

 a corporal of the guard. 



In China there was a popular legend that the introduction of the sugar 

 cane was due to the fact that a man, left by his shipmates to die on the 

 island of Borneo, was found three years afterwards to have entirely sub- 

 sisted on sugar cane, and the crew in taking him back to China, took at 

 the same time some of this valuable plant. 



Prof. M. knew by experience that sorgho was an excellent forage plant, 

 and was, in its green state, preferred by cattle to Stowell's evergreen corn ; 

 but when both are thoroughly dried, they refuse the sorghum, because of 

 the hardness of the outer part of the stalk. This was scarcely an objection, 

 since the introduction of Blanchard's slitting mill, which worked with per- 



