MISCELLANEOUS CROPS. 213 



and I shall now be forced to make it up into molasses. But the 

 cane is better and worth more than my corn. It hardly seems 

 possible that there will be a repetition of the past season for 

 many years to come. But this should be a reminder to all large 

 sugar companies that it is possible, and in choice of location 

 should have its full force. 



There is no doubt but what large sugar plantations in 

 Southern Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and all Southern States 

 will prove more profitable than in the Northern States, but up 

 here it does pay well. There is no arbitrary rule to be laid 

 down for its cultivation, and the suggestions here made are in- 

 tended to apply only where farmers have no better way. The 

 farm tools you now have on hand to work with, as well as the 

 surrounding circumstances, must determine the best method for 

 you to pursue, but the main thing is to cause it to be done, no 

 matter how. 



ITS MANUFACTURE. It is almost incredible that after twenty 

 years of steady cultivation of this plant in our Yankee nation, 

 it should not have been utilized for sugar before 1881. But 

 such is the fact, and with all the wisdom of our agricultural de- 

 partment in Washington, it could not then be placed upon an 

 economical or living basis, while at the present hour the Rio 

 Grande Company, in Cape May County, New Jersey, are manu- 

 facturing over ten thousand pounds of dry sugar each day, be- 

 sides from one thousand to two thousand gallons of molasses. 

 The Champaign Sugar Company, in Champaign, Illinois, and the 

 Sterling Sugar Company, in Sterling, Kansas, are each making 

 about half the amount of the Rio Grande Company, and in ad- 

 dition to these is the Kansas Sugar Company, of Hutchinson, 

 Kansas, that produces daily from twenty to thirty thousand 

 pounds of dry sugar, besides a corresponding amount of drain- 

 age molasses. This latter company have now in employ one 

 hundred and fifty-three men in the factory, forty-five teams 

 hauling the canes from the fields to the mill, using up daily 

 about two hundred tons of the stalks. 



This business is no longer an experiment, but an absolute 

 success, and only awaits for its development a flow of capital. 



