26 



for five years. The bill awakened a great deal of enthusiasm, and, at 

 the same time, a factious opposition, and was lost. At the session of 

 1887 Senator Bawden, of Bourbon County, introduced a bill providing 

 for a bounty of 2 cents per pound, to be paid upon all sugar manufact- 

 ured in the State for five years, the maximum amount to be paid in any 

 year being limited to $15,000. This bill became a law. 



It will thus be seen that the present condition of the sorghum-sugar 

 industry is due to private enterprise, aided by Government and State 

 appropriations, and directed by scientific and practical skill. 



COMMISSIONERS OF AGRICULTURE LE DUG, LORING, AND COLMAN. 



It should be mentioned in this connection that United States Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture Le Due extended a strong and friendly hand 

 to the sorghum-sugar industry during his term of office. His succes- 

 sor, Commissioner Loring, had the work continued by Professor Wiley, 

 but was himself skeptical as to results. The present Commissioner, 

 Hon. Norman J. Colrnan, had been an advocate of sorghum for many 

 years before his accession to office, and had probably written and pub- 

 lished more on the subject than any other man in the United States. 

 Every friend of the struggling industry was gratified at his appoint- 

 ment. He has extended all the aid at his command, and may justly 

 feel proud of the attainment of the present success under his adminis- 

 tration of the Department of Agriculture. 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THE INDUSTRY. 



The experiments in making sugar from sorghum, which, as above 

 shown, have been in progress for several years at the expense of private 

 capital and the United States Department of Agriculture, have this 

 year reached so favorable results as to place the manufacture of sor- 

 ghum sugar on the basis of a profitable business, as will be seen by the 

 report to his company of Hon. W. L. Parkinson, manager of the Fort 

 Scott works. 



The success has been due to, first, the almost complete extraction of 

 the sugars from the cane by the diffusion process 5 second, the prompt 

 and proper treatment of the juice in defecating and evaporating 5 third, 

 the efficient manner in which the sugar was boiled to grain in the strike- 

 pan. That these results may be duplicated and improved upon will be 

 readily understood from the showing made in Mr. Parkinson's report, 

 and the descriptions of methods and processes used, and the discussion 

 of the same as they appear in the subsequent pages of this paper. 



REPORT OF W. L. PARKINSON. 



To the Board of Directors Parkinson Sugar Company: 



GENTLEMEN : I respectfully submit for your consideration the following report of 

 the operations of the works of your company for the season just closing : 



It is provided in our contract with the United States Department of Agriculture 

 that certain experiments in sugar-making shall be made by the Department with cer- 

 tain machinery of its own and at its own expense, using the company's plant and 



