CHAPTER XXIV 



THE SACCHARINE SORGHUMS 

 Sweet Sorghums 



222. This group of sorghums is usually designated as 

 sweet sorghums, or "sugar" sorghums. They are quite 

 distinct from the non-saccharine, grain sorghums in having 

 a juicy stem containing a high percentage of sugar and in 

 producing a rather light seed crop. 



Early culture. — The sweet sorghums have never been 

 cultivated extensively in the Old World, where the 

 sorghums have been cultivated more for seed than for 

 forage — the non-saccharine forms being more productive 

 for the former purpose. The sweet sorghums seem to have 

 been kept in cultivation principally for the sweet canes, 

 which, however, were not manufactured but were peeled 

 and the juice was expressed by chewing. Almost no sweet 

 sorghum is raised in North Africa or in India ; it has been 

 kept in cultivation in China and South Africa, however, 

 though only in a small way. 



223. Introduction into the United States. — The first 

 recorded introduction into the United States was from 

 China in 1853, by way of France, and the plant was known 

 at first as " Chinese Sorgo." This was a loose-panicled 

 sorghum, from which have been derived most of our 

 cultivated varieties of Amber sorghum. " Our Early 

 Amber is said to have originated in 1859 as a sport in a 

 field of Chinese sorgo growing in Indiana." ^ 



' Ball, Cableton R. l.c., p. 25. 

 293 



