30 



NORTHERN SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



iug the rows with a spriug-tooth cultivator, having a part of the teeth reuioved, 

 followed by hand and hoe work. In the after cultivation a sulky cultivator and oue 

 or two one-horse cultivators were constantly employed, when the condition of the 

 ground would permit, until the middle of Jul}", when the sorghum was too large for 

 further cultivation. 



(5) Uuder the head of " other items of interest" a long report might be written, 

 which I assume you do not want, being already familiar iu a general way with the 

 methods employed in growing and harvesting the sorghum crop for the Department. 

 I will only add a short statement iu the way of a general review. 



The land selected by the Commissioner \\as the Patterson farm, about 64 acres, ad- 

 joining the city. It is the same land that was cropped with sorghum for the Depart- 

 ment in 1881. Last year it was not cultivated. The object in subsoiling was to guard 

 against extremes of moisture or drought, and, the season proving an unusually wet 

 one, it saved the crop from being washed out on the hilly portions of the field, and 

 without it cultivation would ha\ e been impracticable during much of the early part 

 of the growing season. The use of a concentrated fertilizer was adopted because it 

 was not thought prudent to use raw stable manure so late in the season as would have 

 been necessary, and a supply of decomposed manure was not obtainable. If the wet 

 season could have been foreseen a considerable part of the ground would have been 

 dressed with stable manure, though it is doubtful if better results would have been 

 reached than with the fertilizer used. The varieties of cane planted were Early Am- 

 ber, for the greater part, and Link's Hybrid, Honduras, Harrison's Red Top, and two 

 others, with results not worthy of note. The Early Amber ripened first, the seed on 

 the gravelly hill tops being ripe September 1. Honduras came next, and Link's Hy- 

 brid and Harrison's Red Top were not fully matured at the end of the season in 

 November. 



The quantity of seed returned to the Department — about 1,000 bushels— does not 

 represent the entire yield, the depredations of the sparrows and that stolen from the 

 field amounting to a considerable per cent, of the crop. 



On the whole the results frotn a farmer's standpoint were satisfactory so far as the 

 yield was concerned. 



If you should require other information at my command, it will give me pleasure 

 to furnish it. 



Very respectfully, 



D. M. NESBIT, 



Siqyerintendent. 



Prof. H. W. Wiley, 



Chemist. 



WEATHER DATA. 



Equally as important as the foregoing are the meteorological condi- 

 tions wliicb prevailed during the season of growth and manufacture. I 

 append the following tables from the ofScial records of the Signal Office. 

 From these monthly tables the season of 1883 can be compared in mean 

 temperatures and i)recipitations with those preceding it. 



