107 



I believe I have incorporated in these general means the average 

 numbers representing the composition of all the sorghum juices which 

 have entered into manufacturing on a large scale of which analyses 

 have been made : 



Means of analyses of sorghum juices manufactured into sugar. 



We come, therefore, to the somewhat surprising result that the mean 

 percentage of sucrose in the juices of sorghum grown on a large scale 

 and entering into the manufacture of sugar in the United States dur- 

 ing the past six years is only 8.54 per cent. 



The mean co-efficient of purity of these juices is 5G.2 and the per cent, 

 of available sugar on the basis of difference between per cent, sucrose 

 and sum of the percentages of other solids, 1.89. Allowing an aver- 

 age extraction of 60 per cent, of the weight of cane, the theoretical 

 yield per ton for the time indicated, supposing there was no loss in man- 

 ufacture, would be 22.68 pounds. By diffusion extracting 93 per cent, 

 of the sugar, and calculating available sugar as sucrose less glucose 

 multiplied by 1.4, the theoretical yield per ton would have been 35.5. 



These figures need no comment. They show beyond any question 

 that the failure to make sorghum sugar profitably in this country has 

 not been due alone to defective machinery nor lack of skill, but chiefly 

 to the quality of the cane which has been used. 



These practical results are strongly in contrast with the conclusions 

 of the committee of the National Academy of Science, who, basing their 

 statements on the results of the analyses of small samples of carefully 

 cultivated cane, reached results which in no manner represent the act ual 

 data of experience. The committee says i 1 



Those analyses have shown the constitution of the juices of each variety at the suc- 

 cessive stages ia the development of the growing plant. They not only confirm the 

 well-known fact of the presence of sugar in the juices of these plants in notable quan- 

 tity, but they also establish beyond cavil what seems surprising to those who have 

 not examined the facts, that the sorghum particularly holds in its juices, when taken 

 at the, proper stage of development, about as much cano sugar as the best sngar-cano 

 oftn'pieal regions. 



1 KVport, National Academy of Sciences on sorghum, p. 4:5. 



