SUGAR-CANE SIRUP MANUFACTURE 3 
TABLE 2.—Sirup production in the United States in 1919 
me Quantity 
Sirup produced 
i 4 Gallons 
PERE SUDO a Sa RE REA ae a le eee eee eee 38, 183, 000 
 COYRE CRITIC O) ee ee oe eee eee Ree eee OCR Se ee oe ae eee a eee a gee ee eee ee ae 39, 413, 000 
P CAOUNBE ENTRY I Be ee a a ee 81, 800, 000 
ERIE SUMO 2 nee Ss eee eS Skee hee ae eee e Some eee ee as oe 3, 885, 000 
NTR GSES SGI NATUT Oy eas RE a ee a a es ees eae ee ee eee 684, 000 
Beeic mm Olassess (couse) astOod)!2"— Hee nen 6e Se eo ne oe Seen eee con eee 6, 706, 000 
TOE oe ene a i ANT ys A, ef ga AO Se Nene ei cee ge 170, 671, 000 
1 Reported by Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U. 8. Department of Agriculture. 
2 Estimated by W. L. Owen (Facts About Sugar (1922), vol. 14, p. 309). 
YIELD OF SIRUP 
| By P. A. Yoprr, Office of Sugar Plant Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture 3 
CLIMATE 
_ The climatic limit for growing sugar cane for sirup is reached at 
a latitude so far north that the cane either remains immature, impart- 
ing an obnoxious green taste to the sirup, or gives a prohibitively small 
yield because of the short season. 
SOIL 
Regions that are climatically adapted to sugar-cane growing for 
sugar manufacture do not have uniformly good sugar-cane soil. The 
available areas of satisfactorily drained, sandy-clay loam soils, well 
adapted to sugar-cane growing, are not, as a rule, in compactly 
_ arranged tracts large enough to supply a sugar factory with cane. 
| Nevertheless, sirup making has flourished under such conditions, for 
) it can be conducted on asmail scale, the supply of cane being economi- 
| cally produced on selected plots of the best land or on small areas that 
| have received special treatment. 
_ Although there are occasional years during which the rainfall is 
'so abundant and so well distributed that a good crop of cane can be 
| grown on typical sandy land by applying fertilizer liberally, there are 
too many years in which a drought practically ruins the crop. Hf 
sandy soil has mixed with it an abundance of humus-forming manures, 
it may be possible, while this manure lasts, to grow good crops of cane. 
' Likewise a relatively sandy area frequently grows one or more good 
crops after the land is first cleared of the native forest growth, while 
Pthe humus and plant food from the native vegetation last; when 
this is mengherad and leached away, however, the soil 1s as unpro- 
_ ductive as other sandy soils. 
_ Clay soils usually contain a relatively large proportion of plant-food 
constituents, especially potash, which become gradually available to 
| the plant through the weathering of the soil. Moreover, clay has a 
| high capacity for retaining moisture and the plant-food constituents 
| applied in fertilizers. Pure clay, or stiff clay, however, has distinct 
| disadvantages. After rains it is slow to dry out sufficiently for 
_ cultivation to proceed. In droughts it is likely to bake so hard that 
a 
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| 3 Taken mainly from a series of articles by P. A. Yoder, entitled ‘‘Sugar Cane Culture for Sirup,’’ pub- 
| lished in Facts about Sugar, (1922) vol. 15, pp. 12, 34, 114, 158, 176, 222, 260, 302, 322, 337, 380, 402, 462, 518. 
ry 
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