72 



NORTHERN SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



Tlie first seeds of the sorgliiim distributed from the United States Patent Office 

 were procured by the Commissioner in France in 1854 and were planted in 1855. 

 After two years of experimental cultivation action was taken for an abundant sup- 

 ply of seeds for planting in 1857. In his report for 1856 (Patent Office Report, 1856, 

 page 5), under date of February 17, 1857, the Commissioner says: "There seems a 

 reasonable probability that it (the Chinese sugar-cane) will furnish almost eYery por- 

 tion of the United States with means of producing, economically, all the sugar, or 

 at least the sirup, which may be needed for domestic consumption, and even, perhaps, 

 much for exportation. Steps have been taken the past season to supply the me^s to 

 extend the cultivation of this product into every portion of the country. This office 

 procured, in the first instance, 175 bushels of the seed which had been grown in this 

 neighborhood, but finding that the demand wasfar from being supplied, 100 bushels more 

 have been recently ordered from France. As every bushel contains seed sufficient to 

 plant more than thirty acres of ground the whole amount distributed from this office 

 during the present season will plant more than 8,000 acres; and, as each acre will 

 yield on an average some 40 bushels of seed, there will probably be grown during the 

 present year enough to plant more than ten million acres in 1858, should it all be har- 

 vested for that purpose; and this is independent of all which may be introduced from 

 other sources. The country may, therefore, be reasonably expected to be fully sup- 

 plied with this seed after the present season, and further distribution thereof from 

 this office will not be necessary. 



[It may be a matter worthy of note here that, in his report to the Commissioner 

 of Patents in 1854, and published in the Commissioner's Report for that year, Mr. 

 D. J. Brown states that Mr. Leonard Wray, who had given much attention to the 

 cultivation, and had experimented upon the juice of the sorghum in Natal, Africa, 

 informed him that in the neighborhood of Natal the Zulu-Kaffre, after gathering 

 the canes of the plant, preserved them for a long time by burying the stalks in the 

 ground, notwithstanding the climate of their country is very waroi and damp. Does 

 not this suggest that in Kansas the season of manufacture might be much prolonged 

 by placing the cane^ in receptacles similar to the silo ?] 



When first noticed in the Patent Office Report, in 1854, sorghum had not been intro- 

 duced into the United States, but an agent of the Government furnished that year 

 for the report some account of the cultivation of the plant in France, where it had 

 been introduced some four or five years before. A small quantity of seed was then 

 procured by the Commissioner and given to a few persons in different portions of this 

 country for planting in 1855. The first reports made of experiments in the culture 

 appeared in the Commissioner's Report for 1855, which was published-in 1856. These 

 reports of experiments are curious, as showing that the cultivation and manufacture 

 of sorghum in this country was, that year, a great novelty and wholly experimental. 

 No instructions as to mode of planting, cultivation, or use had accompanied the pack- 

 ages of seeds received. These were simply the words printed upon the packages: 

 ''Good for fodder, green or dry, and for making sugar." Mr. Brown, the European 

 agent, in his reiiort had stated that the great object sought in France, in the cultiva- 

 tion of this plant, was the juice contained in the stalk ; "which furnishes," he says, 

 "three temporary products — sugar, which is identical with that of cane sugar, alco- 

 hol, and a fermented drink analogous to cider." 



The reports of experiments made in 1855 were from seven States — Illinois, Minne- 

 sota, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. All showed 

 favoral)le results as to sorghum as a forage plant, and in two instances promising re- 

 sults coming from rude experiments in making molasses. 



That year, 1855, was the first year of crop raising among the new settlers of Kansas. 

 None of these settlers probably received seeds for that years planting, and the news- 

 l^apers had not then begun to speak of sorghum. No popular information seems to 

 have appeared on the subject before 1856. My own first definite recollection of the 

 plant is from having grown a few stalks in my own garden, in the city of Atchison, in 



