NORTHERN SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



73 



1858, yet no doubt it was grown in Kansas in 1857, and possibly in 1856. The enter 

 pricing and needy population of Kansas Territory of that day may well be supposed 

 to have quickly seized upon an article of cultivation wbich promised to supply 

 them at the cost of little more than their own labor with an article of so great use 

 and economy, heretofore a heavy drain upon their scanty resources. 



The first mention of sorghum made in a Kansas newspaper, so far as has come 

 under my observation, is found in the columns of the Herald of Freedom, published at 

 Lawrence, of date November 22, 1856. This was the second year of the distribution o^ 

 seeds from the Patent Office, and at the close of the second experimental year in this 

 country. This mention was not concerning a Kansas experiment, but one made that 

 year ir Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In this, details are given in such manner as to 

 imply that the subject was entirely a new one. The results shown were favorable as 

 to sorghum as a fodder plant ; nothing as to sugar or molasses. 



In the next issue of this Kansas paper, that of December 6, 1856, is an article 

 copied from that then leading agricultural paper in the West, the Prairie Farmer, 

 Chicago, in which, under the head of "Sugar Millet," a writer says: "As it seems 

 desirable to obtain all the information possibl'e in reference to the sugar millet, or 

 Chinese sugar-cane, I give such facts as I have been able to obtain in reference to 

 my own experience." The writer had planted in his irrigated garden in Illinois a 

 square rod of ground, with a package of seed which had been sent him from the 

 Patent Office ; planting late in the season, for at first he had thought of doing noth- 

 ing with the seed, considering it rather in the light of a hoax. After the cane had 

 grown, he let the frost nip it. He then cut it down and threw it to one side in order 

 to plant the patch to strawberries. After that, and after the cane had lain ten days 

 in a heap, seeing in a newspaper the account given by Governor Hammond of his ex- 

 periment the year before in South Carolina, the Illinois writer took some of his canes, 

 cut them into 3-inch pieces, and put them through his cider mill and then through 

 Ms cider press, thus getting out seven quarts of juice. This he evaporated, and ob- 

 tained a quart of a fair specimen of molasses, cleansing with soda and a little milk. 

 He seemed to consider his experiment as a promising one. 



Our Kansas Herald of Freedom of December 20, 1856, has a scrap from a Nebraska 

 paper, in which the editor acknowledges the receipt of a small quantity of molasses 

 manufactured from sorghum cane grown in that Territory. As Kansas was far 

 ahead of Nebraska in most everything in those times, not excepting the matter of 

 political commotion within her midst, it is not to be doubted that she was, at the 

 least, even with her neighbor on the north as to time in sorghum planting, and it is 

 expected that it will yet be found that sorghum was grown in Kansas in the year 

 1858. 



At the close of the reading of this paper before the Sorgham Asso- 

 ciation, Mr. F. W. Griles, of Topeka, arose and stated that in the autumn 

 of 1855, being then postmaster of Topeka, he received from the United 

 States Patent Of&ce a small quantity of the Chinese sugar-cane seed, 

 as it was then called, and inthe spring of 1856, planted it upon his farm 

 near Topeka. The growth of the plant was watched with deep inter- 

 est, and when it had attained maturity it presented a spectacle so novel, 

 and so suggestive of future possibilities to the new Territory, that he 

 contributed an item upon the subject to the Kansas Freeman, a newspa- 

 per then published at Topeka. In the succeeding winter, great inter- 

 est being felt throughout the country as to the results of the new cane 

 culture, he gave information that he had successfully grown the plant, 

 and had saved a small quantity of the seed, which he offered to persons 

 who might desire to secure it. Some forty small packages, containing 



