SUGAR FROM SORGHUM 231 



Years of struggle preceded the final success of the best sugar 

 production, made possible only by the persevering investiga- 

 tions of chemists supported by the determination of the French 

 Government to prevent the admission of foreign sugars. The 

 full profitable employment of the beet-sugar factories of Europe 

 and jthe financial success of the one enterprise in California, 

 all warrant the hope of our establishing an indigenous sugar 

 industry from sorghum as well. By means of scientific dis- 

 covery carried on if requisite at experimental stations sup- 

 ported by Government aid, or if undertaken commercially 

 by private enterprises aided by full protection or an adequate 

 system of bounties, the final result will be reached, and we 

 shall save the millions now sent abroad for sugar, and estab- 

 lish our independence in this particular of the rest of the world. 



It is not meant that the sorghum growers should profit at 

 the expense of other sugar growers. It has been indicated 

 that our great country can grow several kinds of sugar crops. 

 Each is to contribute its share. "There should be no enmity 

 between the grower of sorghum, the sugar beet, and the sugar- 

 cane, but all should work in harmony for the general good." 1 



It will be observed that I have not attempted to give a his- 

 tory of the sorghum enterprise, nor to dwell upon the evolu- 

 tion of the mechanical or chemical methods which have cost 

 so much time and money with so little success. The very 

 latest series of experiments of diffusion and its chemistry as 

 conducted under the direction of the chemist of the Agricul- 

 tural Bureau himself, at Fort Scott, is placed at your service, 

 and the failure to solve the sugar problem but increases the 

 duties of students of plant chemistry, whose researches and 

 faithful studies will alone make it possible to surmount many 

 of these difficulties, we trust in the near future. 



1 Bui. No. 5, p. 187. 



