ON CHEMICAL YIELDING PLANTS 



I satisfied myself as to the feasibility of the 

 project; it should be carried to completion by some 

 one working under the auspices of the Govern- 

 ment or an Agricultural Society where abundant 

 acreage and intelligent help are available. 



The work is important, for the syrup-bearing 

 sorghum is a plant of real yalue, and there is a 

 great demand for its product. But the work of 

 developing the plant does not offer commercial 

 inducements that make it profitable for the private 

 investigator to devote a large amount of time to it. 

 Some Curious Carbohydrates 



The differences between the sweets extracted 

 from the sugar-cane and those taken from the 

 sorghum are very obvious and tangible. 



One plant supplies a juice that when boiled and 

 evaporated and refined gives a fine granular 

 product familiar to everyone as sugar. 



The juice of the other plant, somewhat 

 similarly treated, constitutes a syrup of varying 

 color, which is exceedingly sweet and palatable, 

 but which canilot be reduced to a granular condi- 

 tion in which it could by any chance be mistaken 

 for cane sugar. Yet the chemist tells us that the 

 sugar content of the juices of these plants is in 

 each case a compound made up exclusively of 

 three elements — carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — 

 and that the differences observed are due to modi- 



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