II. S. OLCOTT ON THE SOKGllO AND IMi'IIEE. 409 



First Appearance in Europe. 



Its first appccarancc in Eur()})e dates back no farther than the 

 year 1851, at which time the Count do Montigny, consul of France 

 at Shanghac, in China, sent to the Geographical Society of Paris 

 a collection of plants and seeds which he found in China, and 

 which he thought would succeed in his own country. Among 

 these was the celebrated Chinese yam {Dioscorea batatas) and the 

 Holcus saccharatus, under the name of " the sugar-cane of the 

 north orChina." Curiously enough, there was received in France 

 at about the same time a quantity of seeds of a plant having ap- 

 parently the same properties and almost the same appearance as 

 the Sorgho, which had been discovered on the southeast coast of 

 Africa, in the country of the Zulu Kaffirs, by Mr. Leonard Wray ; 

 and upon comparing the plants derived from these widely sepa- 

 rate sources, the remarkable fact was made apparent, that in abil- 

 ity to yield crystallized sugar, to afford nourishment for stock, 

 and in the requirements of cultivation and other peculiarities, they 

 were almost identical. 



Various Experimenters. 



Experiments were likewise instituted by members of the Im- 

 perial Acclimation Society, but by none were they more zealous- 

 ly pursued, nor more successfully carried on, than by the Compte 

 de David Beauregard. This gentleman was so confident of its 

 value that he made strenuous efforts to increase his stock of seed, 

 planted the greatest possible area of land with it, and succeeded 

 so completely that it is from his third crop that has been derived 

 the major portion of the immense amount that has been planted 

 in the United States. In France we find it successively spread- 

 ing in the provinces of La Drome, Les Pyrenees Orientales, La 

 Haute-Marne, La Gironde, Le Gers, etc., and every where exciting 

 the greatest attention among the most distinguished agricultur- 

 ists ; and thence it quickly finds its way to Algeria. 



Mr. Leonard Wray. 



Mr. Wray is widely known to the sugar-planters of the world 

 from his authorship of the " Sugar-Planters' Companion," pub- 

 lished in Calcutta in 1843, and the "Practical Sugar-Planter," pub- 

 lished in London in 1848, and republished in French, Spanish, 

 Portuguese, and Dutch. In 1850 he left the East Indies for the 

 Cape of Good Hope, w^hence he went to Kaffirland, and found the 

 Zulu Kaffirs cultivating the Imphee around their huts, not for the 

 purpose of manufacturing crj^stallized sugar or obtaining any oth- 

 er of its products with a commercial view, but merely for the pur- 

 pose of chewing and sucking the stalks. He quickly saw of what 

 value such plants were likely to become to Europe and America, 

 and applied himself to their study, their culture, and manufacture 



