Sugar from Sorghum. 



Thousands of operators throughout the (country now make Sorghum 

 syrup equal in appearance and taste to the best refined syrup, and make 

 money every year in the business. Many of them starting with small 

 horse-power outfits, have enlarged their plants year to year, until they have 

 steam-outfits that cost from $5,000 to $6,000, or more, and make money. 



SORGHUM FOR SUGAR. 



Under favorable conditions, and with the proper appliances, sugar can 

 be readily made from Sorghum. It has been made in greater or less 

 quantity by many operators throughout the country every year since 1858. 

 Sugar making from Sorghum has not yet, however, proven a profitable 

 business ; on the contrary, wherever undertaken on a large scale it has been 

 a money losing operation. The operator does not merely want to be assured 

 that he can make sugar, but that by making sugar he can make mofiey. We 

 have, therefore, always cautioned those who sought our advice, that whilst 

 it might prove in the end that money could be made out of sugar making 

 in the North, it was by no means certain, and that it was best to go slow. 



Sorghum is a crop already of immense value to the North, and it is 

 capable of being developed into one of the most valuable of all the crops ; 

 but this desirable end cannot be secured by giving it a fictitious value. It 

 pays to plant Sorghum now for syrup' and fodder, and will pay still better 

 when all the valuable properties of the plant are recognized and made use of. 



If Sorghum growing in the North was general in all sections where climate 

 and soil are favorable, and the best machinery and skill used in its manu- 

 facture into syrup. Sorghum syrup would soon monopolize the home market, 

 and in the end bring its value in the general market. 



There would be at times in some sections an overproduction in this crop, 

 as in all others, that would make it temporarily unprofitable; but this would 

 regulate itself, as in other crops. There is no question but that much more 

 can be made out of Sorghum than has yet been made. Many experienced 

 cane growers are hopeful that it may yet be shown that the crop may be 

 grown for sugar profitably. 



\n favorable seasons and localities, perhaps sugar can be raa.d.e profitably , 

 and where the investment is not so great as to make success dependent on 

 making the whole crop into sugar every season, whether favorable or not, it may 

 be a reasonably safe risk. 



Whilst then it may yet be demonstrated that Sorghum may be grown 

 profitably for sugar alone, for the present at least the chief reliance must be 

 in the production of a good quality of syrup. 



We are not as yet prepared to accept the enthusiastic prediction of Dr. 

 Collier, in the preface of his valuable book on Sorghum, that "the Sorghum 

 plant is destined, sooner or later, to furnish not only all the sugar needed 

 in this country, but also a very considerable portion of that required by 

 foreign nations." 



