OTHER FARM CROPS 649 



that almost any soil, in any section of the country, with suitable 

 rainfall, can produce good sirup. And it is probably also true that 

 by separating well the colorless solution of crystallizable sugar and 

 of uncrystallizable sugar, which sorghum juice always contains, from 

 the vegetable impurities, good sorghum sirup can be made in any 

 section with cane from any soil. Canes of quick growth usually 

 produce good sirup ; for, to ripen unusually soon, the entire growing 

 season must be unusually favorable, producing naturally pure juice, 

 and thus, naturally, pure sirup. Unfitness of sorghum juice for 

 sirup making increases as canes become ripe or overripe. For these 

 reasons sirup made in the far North is usually of better color, of 

 milder flavor, and more palatable than sirup made in the South. 

 Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the part of Texas south of these 

 States, produce the largest acreage of sorghum and the cheapest 

 cane; the canes produce denser, richer juice, but often less pure, and 

 consequently inferior sirup to that of States less subject to extremes 

 of drought and flood. In Kansas the amount of true sirup-making 

 material, the sum of the crystallizable and of the uncrystallizable 

 sugar, varies less from year to year than the yield of wheat or of corn. 

 The juice usually contains quite as much of these two sirup-making 

 materials as Louisiana sugarcane juice, yet it often produces sirup 

 of poor quality, because it is often loaded with slimy and suspended 

 impurities, which are not well separated from the juice by the pro- 

 cesses of sirup making now in use. The climate and the nature of 

 sorghum can not be changed. Western sirup makers need to take 

 more pains to grow good cane and to use better methods for cleaning 

 the juice from its impurities. The generally inferior quality of 

 Kansas sirup is not caused by the soil, for in favorable seasons it 

 produces as good sirup as any section. It is not due to the lack of 

 good sirup-making material in the juice, but to the excess of impuri- 

 ties present. When the juice is well purified it always gives good 

 sirup. The special object of this bulletin is to show how the vegetable 

 impurities which give sorghum sirup its dark color, rank flavor, and 

 turbid appearance may be removed, so that better sirup may be al- 

 ways produced in any section or locality. 



Planting, Cultivating, and Harvesting. Securing good un- 

 mixed seed, of a good variety, is the first step toward making good 

 sirup. A sirup maker should select typical canes of the varieties 

 he prefers and put them in shock. The seed keeps well there, unless 

 taken by birds or stock, and should remain until they can be at- 

 tended to. When quite dry, a dozen or more of the seed heads should 

 be put into a stout grain bag. Pounding the heads with a club 

 quickly thrashes the seeds. The seeds may be cleaned in the wind 

 by pouring them from one pan into another, then shaking the pan 

 to bring stems and trash to the surface, so that they can be removed. 

 A sirup maker may thus obtain unmixed seed of a good variety, 

 sounder, cleaner, and better than he can buy. 



Planting and Cultivating. A pound and a half of sound seed 

 is enough to plant an acre. A bushel weighs 56 pounds. Some va- 

 rieties ripen in three months, some in four months. When bar- 



