APPENDIX A. 



Letter of the Commissioner in transmitting report of M. Swenson to the 



Senate. 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY, 

 Washington, D. C., February 2, 1888. 



SIR : In response to a resolution of the Senate of the 30th ultimo, I 

 have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of the report made to this 

 Department by Professor Swenson on the subject of sorghum sugar. 



For the further information of the Senate I beg to say that experi- 

 ments in the manufacture of sugar have been conducted by this De- 

 partment during the past season at three stations, namely, Rio Grande, 

 N. J. ; Fort Scott, Kans. ; and Magnolia Plantation. La. The two first- 

 named stations worked with the sorghum cane and the last-named sta- 

 tion with sugar-cane. I ^was led to change my original intention to 

 publish the reports of these stations separately by the belief that the com- 

 bination of the three reports in one volume would make a more useful, 

 practicable, and valuable document for purposes of comparison and 

 otherwise a document which would be especially valuable in the South 

 to sugar-planters, who might thereby be* led to greatly prolong their 

 sugar- working season by planting both the sorghum and the sugar cane. 

 The material portions of the reports of the two first-named stations 

 were thereupon made public through the press and their official publi- 

 cation delayed, awaiting the termination^ last week, of the experiments 

 at Magnolia. The manuscript for this report is now ready for the 

 printer, and it will be published as an official report of this Department 

 within a few days. 



Very respectfully, 



NORMAN J. COLMAN, 

 Commissioner of Agriculture. 

 Hon. JOHN J. ING-ALLS, 



President pro tempore. United States Senate. 



97 

 15449 No. 17 7 



