CHAPTER VIII 



RURAL MANUFACTURES OF MICHIGAN 



For some years subsequent to the Civil War^ Michi- 

 gan farmers concerned themselves to a notable degree 

 in the growing of Chinese sugar-cane or sorghum. 

 The Report of the State Board of Agriculture for 

 1<S65 refers to its culture in the State as then of 

 several years duration, and the production of sirup 

 in that year is estimated at 400,000 gallons.^ The 

 juice was extracted from the cane by a roller press 

 operated by the grower of the crop. One producer 

 reports a product of two hundred gallons to the acre 

 of cane, which sold at seventy-five cents a gallon.^ 

 The output seems to have been restricted to the south- 

 ern counties of the Lower Peninsula and to have been 

 greatly stimulated by the sugar scarcity of the war 

 era. It was hoped that sugar could be extracted 

 from the sorghum sirup, and led to legislation in 

 1881 providing a bounty for sugar production from 

 this source or from beets. R. C. Kedzie related how 

 only one farmer qualified for this bounty by pro- 

 ducing 20,235 pounds of sugar from sorghum.^ 



^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1865, 17. 



^Jhid., 1870, 150. 



3 "Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX, 202. 



290 



