16 SUPPLEMENT. 



ments of fertility be restored by the growth of one or more 

 generations of pines. 



Our production of the sorghum plant, although spreading 

 steadily in some portions of the country, has not yet received 

 that attention in those localities, which, on account of a warm 

 and long season, are particularly qualified to reap the full bene- 

 fit of its cultivation. In a paper presented to the New York 

 State Agricultural Society at their annual meeting in 1861, and 

 printed in their annual report of that year, I stated the results 

 of a chemical investigation carried out by me in 1857, concern- 

 ing the fitness of the sorghum cane for the manufacture of 

 sugar and of superior sirups. These statements have been 

 confirmed, as far as its yield of a good quality of sirup is con- 

 cerned ; but the manufacture of sugar has not been tried to 

 any extent, although there is no substantial reason why within 

 some of the Southern States with their favorable climate, a 

 part of its sugar might not be advantageously secured in crys- 

 tals. A proper defecation of the sorghum juice before its con- 

 centration would doubtless accomplish that result. In making 

 these statements here, I do not intend to assert that most of our 

 Northern, and particularly our North-western States can profit- 

 ably engage in the production of sorghum sugar. Localities 

 liable to early frost and short seasons had better confine them- 

 selves, if at all engaged in sorghum cultivation, to the manufacture 

 of sirups, for unripe cane is entirely unfit for the manufacture of 

 crystallized sugar. The Middle and some of the Southern 

 States have apparently not sufficiently appreciated the value of 

 this crop. Associations between neigliboring farmers for the 

 purpose of supporting one cane-mill in common, no doubt, 

 would reap handsome profits. Quick working of the ripe cane 

 is essential to success, for there is no practical way as yet pro- 

 posed, by which the sorghum cane may be preserved unchanged 

 after it has attained its ripeness. 



In view of these present conditions and future prospects of 

 existing home resources of one of our most important articles 

 for daily comfort, we must regard it as peculiarly proper that 

 public attention is turning more and more seriously toward the 

 question, whether with intelligent management the production 

 of beet sugar as an industrial enterprise can be profitably un- 

 dertaken in Massachusetts, as it has been in many countries of 



