63 



[Copy of statement of facts submitted to the Attorney-General for bis information by the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture.] 



Letters Patent, No. 371528, issued to Magnus Svvenson. Manufacture of sugar. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 



The Department of Agriculture directed its attention to the manufacture of sugar 

 from maize and sorghum cane in the year 1877, and since that time has continuously 

 been engaged in investigations and experiments for the purpose of discovering a pro- 

 cess that would extract the sugar from these canes in a commercially successful man- 

 ner. These experiments have been carried on by direct authorization of Congress. 



The first session of the Forty-seventh Congress appropriated, " For experiments in 

 the manufacture of sugar from sorghum, beets, and other sugar-producing plants, 

 twenty- five thousand dollars." (Stat. L., vol. 22, p. 91.) 



The same Congrnss at its second session appropriated $16,000 (vol. 22, p. 410) ; the 

 Forty-eighth Congress at its first session appropriated $50,000 (vol. 23, p. 38), and at 

 its second session, $40,000 (vol. 23, p. 354) for the same purpose. In 1883 the chemist 

 of the Department conceived the idea of adapting the " diffusion process," success- 

 fully used in Europe in the manufacture of beet sugar, to the extraction of sugar 

 from sorghum and maize cane. The results of the experiments carried on in this di- 

 rection during the year 1883 are continued in special Bulletins Nos. 2 and 3, issued by 

 the Chemical Division of the Department in 1884. 



Further investigations were made during the year 1884, and a chemist from the 

 Chemical Division was sent to Europe to study the "diffusion process" as practiced 

 there and the machinery used in its application. The results of the work for this 

 year are fully set out in Bulletin No. 5. Bulletin No. 6 contains a record of the work 

 for the year 1885. 



In the fall of 1885 Professor Wiley, chemist of the Department, was directed to 

 proceed to Europe to study the "diffusion process." Bulletin No. 8 gives the result 

 of his visit there and conclusions reached as to the proper adaptation of process and 

 machinery to manufacture sugar in this country from sorghum cane by the " diffusion 

 process." 



As a result of the investigations and experiments brought down to 1886, this De- 

 partment felt convinced that it had reached a satisfactory solution of sugar manu- 

 facture, as applied to "sorghum, and that it had secured a successful method and 

 devised suitable machinery to establish this work as one of the commercial industries 

 of the country. To test the process and the machinery devised on a commercial 

 scale, anJ for the purpose of perfecting by experiments any defect that might arise 

 either in the chemical progress of the process or mechanical arrangement of the 

 machinery, the Department received from Congress an appropriation for these pur- 

 poses. 



On June 30, 1886, there was appropriated as follows: "For purchase, erection, 

 transportation, and operation of machinery, and necessary traveling within the 

 United States, and other expenses in continuing and concluding experiments in the 

 manufacture of sugar, by the ' diffusion and saturation processes,' from sorghum and 

 sugar cane, so much thereof as may be necessary to be immediately available, $94,000." 

 (Stat.L., vol.23, p. 101.) 



Under this act of Congress the Commissioner of Agriculture on the 19th of July, 

 1886, employed and appointed one Magnus Swenson to " superintend, under the di- 

 rection of the chemist, the experiments in the manufacture of sugar from sorghum at 

 Fort Scott, Kaiis," at a salary of $2,400 per annum, during the continuance of the 

 experiments. A copy of this appointment is hereto appended. (Exhibit A.) 



The experiments carried on under the foregoing act of Congress last mentioned are 

 set out in detail in Bulletin No. 14, a copy of which is appended. (Exhibit B.) 



In the course of these experiments a difficulty was met with, described on page 28 

 of Exhibit B, namely, an acidity in the diffusion battery, which caused an inversion 



