INTRODUCTORY. 



ORGHUM, since its first introduction into the United States in 1854, 

 has passed through several critical stages. The new plant was 

 heralded with a flourish of trumpets, and the expectations of the 

 farmers of the North and South excited to the utmost by the representations 

 made of its remarkable qualities and value. Not only was syrup of the best 

 quality promised, but sugar ad libitum. All the farmer had to do was to 

 plant a few acres and he was to have syrup and sugar in,proportion, and 

 a ready market at high prices. Even the intrinsic value of the plant fof 

 forage, etc. , was exaggerated beyond all moderation. Thousands all over ' 

 the country rushed into the cultivation of the new gold-bearing plant, and 

 the result was sharp and decisive. With little or no knowledge of the plant 

 itself, or the proper culture thereof, and totally without experience as to its 

 rtianufacture into syrup and sugar, and with no proper appliances or machin- 

 ery, millions of gallons of black, unpalatable syrup were made, glutting and 

 destroying the home market, and finding, of course, no sale in the general 

 market. Thus heralded, thus introduced, and thus maltreated. Sorghum 

 was, after the first four years' trial, generally considered a failure, and its 

 cultivation' was as rapidly. abandoned as taken up. 



About this time (1858) appeared' an invention of an Ohio farmer (Mr. 

 D. M. Cook, of Richland County,) the Cook Evaporator, of simple and 

 scientific construction, which, in the hands of Blymyer, Bates & Day, of 

 Mansfield, O., was energetically introduced throughout the country. (This 

 invention, by the way, has never been equalled or excelled, save by an im- 

 proved machine, first introduced a few years ago by the Blymyer Manu- 

 facturing Co., 'called the "Automatic Cook Evaporator.") 



Later on, the war between the Federal Government and the Southern 

 Confederacy broke out, the price of syrup rose to a high figure, and as it 

 had become known throughout the North that an excellent Sorghum syrup 

 could be made on the Cook Evaporator, new life was infused into Sorghum, 

 and its manufacture became a great industry. 



After the war, prices of syrup go!ng down under competition with other 

 syrups, and the domestic market being glutted with the immense production, 

 Sorghum was once more on the wane, and although it remained a most 

 important article of domestic manufacture and consumption, it slowly 

 retrograded. 



