WORK DONE AT THE STERLING EXPERIMENT STATION. 



REPORT OF A. A. LENTON AND C. A. CRAMPTON. 



The experimental work which has been done at the Sterling Sugar 

 Experiment Station was wholly in the line of improving the sorghum 

 plant with a view to increase the yield of sugar from sorghum canes, 

 to obviate certain physical or outward faults of the plant, and to obtain 

 varieties which are less variable in their yield of sugar. 



It is probable that i\\c, extraction of juice from sorghum canes has 

 nearly or quite reached its practical limit, and that diffusion apparatus 

 needs only to be improved in details of construction which is more prop- 

 erly the work of machinists. 



It is probable that the evaporating apparatus used in sugar manu- 

 facture, the triple effect, the vacuum pan, etc., will not soon be very 

 greatly improved, for they are the result of many years of experiment 

 by scientists, aided by the most skilled engineers. 



There remains, however, a very important and promising field for ex- 

 perimental work in the line of sugar manufacture, and that is the im- 

 provement of the sorghum plant upon which the sorghum -so gar industry 

 depends for ultimate success. 



The importance and necessity of such work has been recognized by 

 every one who has been engaged in the development of the industry, but 

 very little has been actually done in that direction ; the greatest atten- 

 tion has been devoted to the methods of extraction and manufacture, 

 while the quality of the raw material has been neglected. 



If improved varieties of sorghum were developed, as improved va- 

 rieties of the sugar-cane or of the sugar-beet have been developed, a 

 successful future for the sorghum-sugar industry in competition with 

 the sugar-cane and the sugar-beet industries could be confidently as- 

 sured. 



In illustration of this disability which hinders the sorghum-sugar in- 

 dustry, it is proper to recall the fact that the new beet-sugar factories 

 erected this year in California imported beet seed from Europe at heavy 

 cost, because there the sugar-beet has been bred up and improved by 

 many years of persistent effort by experts in that line, so that this Eu- 

 ropean improved beet seed produces at once in California beets which 

 contain from 14 to 20 per cent, of sugar. New sorghum-sugar factories 

 have been built this season in Kansas, but they can nowhere procure 



105 



