462 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



DISCUSSION. 



W. L. Anderson, There is one idea contained in the address, regarding the out- 

 look of the sorghum interest, that should not be overlooked. It is of practical 

 importance that we should not only know the future, but what hopes of success we 

 may expect by using our money in this direction. I have been studying the mat 

 ter considerably, and don't like to pass any cloud over the meeting, but I feel a 

 little blue. I do not think, if things continue as they now are, that sorghum 

 would be as profitable a crop as corn. I can make a sugar syrup at 40 cents a gal- 

 lon, and granulated sug.^r at 6 cents per pound. You can see at once that it does 

 not pay our farmers ; and they would not continue to use sorghum at 50 or 60 

 cents a gallon. I am satisfied that sorghum syrup in a few years can be bought at 

 20 cents a gallon. 



Prof. Wiley. I think we have no cause to fear a syrup which is the refuse of 

 the sugar factory. When the sugar is properly made it is so largely composed of 

 sodium and potassium it is not fit for table use, and never can compete with pure 

 sorghum syrup, because in that we have the natural juices. 



E. W. Deming. I am sure I do not know what to say in this matter. I beliere 

 that hard times and depression of business has done more damage to the sorghum 

 interest than any one thing else. I know very little of those small factories. I 

 am in a large one, and engaged in making syrup largely. 1 think this business is 

 going to be carried on by keeping a number of hogs, to which the low-grade syrup 

 may be fed, and utilizing the seed for feeding purposes. 



Mr. McQuistin. The times are better now than a few years ago. A number of 

 those factories in the South have broken up, and all of those large factories in the 

 North are more or less financially embarrassed. 



E. W. Deming. Those small works make better and brighter-colored molasses, 

 and find more favor on the market. But it does not stand to reason that any 

 locality will continue to pay forty cents to fifty cents for syrup from small works 

 when they can buy it at on-half of that from large works.- Those large works have 

 to contend with the groceries. They will take from the farmers because they will 

 frequently take it in trade or apply it to some store account. 



Alonzo Chapnan. Some of the gentlemen seem to think the sorghum outlook is 

 blue; perhaps it is, in a large way. Some in our portion of the State have been 

 selling it readily at not less than forty cents, and some as high as fifty cents per 

 gallon — making an average of forty-five cents. I have known some who have 

 made considerable money at it. The sorghum by-product is going to be the profit 

 in manufacturing. We can raise sorghum for the syrup, and utilize the fodder 

 and bagasse, while the skimmings are excellent for hogs. So I think a great 

 many persons look at this thing wrongly. When we come to investigate closely it 

 is not so bad as many think. Yet, many farmers have lost money in a greater or 

 lesser degree. Last year we took some sorghum to Louisville, for which thirty-five 

 cents was the best offer we could get, at wholesale. They told us that our molasses 

 must be graded before they could handle it. This is where we make a mistake 

 in working up little lots of cane ; to-day one grade, and to-morrow another grade. 



