514 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 
Mr. Buckland further experimented with a jar of the syrup containing 
about one gallon. After it had stood for some months, he boiled the syrup 
as before until it stood the proper test. He then poured it into soup-plates. 
A week haying elapsed without any sign of crystallization, he poured it 
from the plates into five glass salt jars. In a few days he found it had all 
erystallized, but when he went to treat it further, he found that the con- 
tents of two of the jars had reverted to syrup. He then treated the three 
that were in order so as to extract the sugar. 
On pouring out the contents of one of the jars, which had reverted to syrup, 
it at once crystallized, and he extracted the sugar. The remaining jar has 
since crystallized, but has not been further treated. He thinks that these two 
obstinate jars got more of the thin top of the syrup than the others in pour- 
ing it from the soup-plates. He obtained from this second experiment about 
14 lbs. of the sugar you see in those two glass jars, Nos. 2 and 3. 
Of course these hat roughly-made experiments give no data for esti- 
mating the proportion of sugar which can be extracted from the syrup. In 
dealing with these small quantities there is a constant loss, as every time the 
material is poured from one vessel to another, a considerable portion sticks 
to the vessel. What is proved, is, that in the syrup there is a large amount 
of good sugar erystallizable and extractable even by the roughest processes. 
If vacuum pans were used for concentrating with certainty the syrup to 
crystallizing point without risk of burning, and centrifugal machines used 
for extracting the sugar, as is now successfully practised in America, then, 
alone, could the exact proportion of sugar to syrup be determined. A 
much better quality of sugar is also thus prepared, fetching 8 cents. per lb. - 
in the market in America, whilst that prepared in open pans fetches only 
44-5 cents. 4 
The following results I claim to have established :—1st. That the Early 
Amber Sorghum is well suited for our soil and climate, from the Bay of 
Plenty northwards. 2nd. That on average soils, from 12-16 tons per 
acre of cane may be grown at an expenditure not greater than for a crop of 
maize. 8rd. That 40-50 per cent. of weight of cane, equal to 90 gallons 
per ton, may be expressed as juice. 4th. That the juice properly treated 
will produce one-sixth of its bulk, or 15 gallons of a rich syrup, far guperior 
to ordinary molasses, which will keep unaltered by fermentation for many 
months. 
What 1 expect to see in the future is this: that our northern farmers 
will grow Sorghum, crush, and concentrate the juice to syrup, not attempt- 
ing to make sugar themselves, but sending their syrup to the sugar-refining 
works now in course of erection near Auckland, where it will be properly 
treated, and the sugar produced by the most approved processes. As the 
