(9) 



COST. 



"The cost of these sweets is a serious burden upon the 

 country. " We have the soil to produce a full supply, either 

 of cane or beet sugar and laborers sufiering for work, and 

 measures should be taken for a rapid increase of home pro- 

 duction. The details of the cost of the sugar used in this 

 country, subject to a slight reduction from re-exportation, 

 are thus given in the statistics of the customs receipts : 



FIfCAL YEAR OF 1876. 



Sugar, brown pounds, 1,414,254,663 $55,702,903 



Sugar, refined pounds, 19,981 1,685 



Molasses .gallons, 39,026,200 8,157,470 



Melada, syrup, &c pounds, 79,702,878 2,415,995 



Candy, &c pounds, 87,955 18,500 



$66,296,553' 



Beside the cane proper, and sugar beet, a few other sources 

 of sugar have been suggested or tried in this country. 

 Among the most prominent being sorghum, the maple, and 

 recently watermelons. 



SORGHUM, 



Quoting again from the report of the Agricultural Bureau 

 for 1876: 



" As an estimate for twenty-one years since the introduc- 

 tion of sorghum, 11,000,000 gallons of syrup per annum 

 might approximate the product. At an average value of 

 65 cents (it is less now) the value of the annual product 

 would be $7,150,000. The sugar of sorghum is a small 

 item, yet in fourteen years, in Ohio alone, it amounts to 



