15 



ing tbe quality o, r m, cam- to lie used. In Bulletin No. 3, page 107, 1 

 made the following stati-ments : 



Tin- fin UK- success of the industry depends on the following conditions, viz: 



(1) A careful si-lection and improvement of the seed with a view of increasing the 

 proportion ol'sucn se. 



(2) A definition of geographical limitnof successful culture and manufacture. 



(3) A better met nod of purifying the juices. 



(4) A more complete separat ion of t he sugar from the canes. 



(5) A more complete separation of the sugar from the molasses. 



(6) A systematic utilization of the by products. 



(7) A careful nutrition and improvement of the soil. 



IMPROVEMENT BY SEED SELECTION. 



I am fully convinced that the Government should undertake the experiments which 

 have in view the increase of the ratio of sucrose to the other substances in the juice. 

 These experiments, to be valuable, must continue under proper scientific direction 

 for a number of years. The cost will be so great that a private citizen will hardly bo 

 willing to undertake the expense. 



The history of the improvement in the sugar beet should be sufficient to encourage 

 all similar efforts with sorghum. 



The original forage beet, from which the sugar beet has been developed, contained 

 only 5 or 6 per cent, of sucrose. The sugar beet now will average 10 per cent.* of 

 sucrose. It seems to me that a few years of careful selection may secure a similar 

 improvement in sorghum. 



It would be a long step toward the solution of the problem to secure a sorghum 

 that would average, field with field, 12 per cent, sucrose and only 2 per cent, of other 

 sugars, and with such cane the great difficulty would be to make sirup and not sugar. 

 Those varieties and individuals of each variety of cane which show the best analyt- 

 ical results should be carefully selected for seed, and this selection continued until 

 accidental variations become hereditary qualities in harmony with the well-known 

 principles of descent. 



If these experiments in selection could be made in different parts of the count iv, 

 and especially the various agricultural stations and colleges, they would have addi- 

 tional value and force. In a country whose soil and climate are as diversified as in 

 this, results obtained in one locality are not always reliable for another, 



If some unity of action could in this way be established among those engaged in 

 agricultural research, much time and labor would be saved and more valuable results 

 be obtained. 



In a summary of tbe methods which 'I had advocated for the im- 

 provement of the sorghum plant, I said in an address before the National 

 Sugar Growers' Association in Saint Louis, in February, 1887: 



Finally, our experiments have taught us that after all the mechanical difficulties 

 which have, been enumerated inilie manufacture of sugar from sorghum have been 

 overcome, tlie industry can not become commercially successful until the scientific 

 agronomist succeeds in producing a sorghum plant with a reasonably high and uni- 

 form content of sucrose and a minimum of other substances. This work is peculiarly 

 the function of our Agricultural experiment stations. In beet Migar-producingcoim- 

 tries the production of the seed for planting is a distinct liranch of the indiitr\ 



* In the six years that have passed since the above was \\iiiten the sii^ar lice! has 

 been still further improved and its mean percentage of sucrose now amounts to pt- r . 

 haps 12. 



