SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
299 
usually intense for two weeks, and has continued so up to 
the present time ; and, latterly the drouth has been very 
destructive. I do not think this half acre would have yielded 
5 bushels had it been planted in corn. Having intended, 
however, to ascertain whether the Millet would make 
syrup, I had a rude mill put up with two beech wood 
rollers. 
Finding that by the 22d of July the most advanced 
heads had passed the milk stage, 1 had 1750 canes cut, 
that 1 supposed were a fair sample of the patch. The first 
three or tour hundred were passed through the mill twice, 
the remainder four times, and the yield was 194 qts. of juice. 
But 10 canes that I selected and passed 7 times through 
the mill, yelded 3 quarts. iMr. Clark, one of our mem- 
bers, was present when this was done. The juice was 
received in common tubs and tested by a thermometer, 
and a sacchrometer with a scale of 40 degrees. The ther- 
mometer stood in every instance at 78 degrees. The 
sacchrometre varied from 211 deg. to23| degrees. At the 
latter point the juice would float a fresh egg. I boiled it 
in a deep, old-fashioned cow pot, and after 6 or 7 hours 
•boiling obtained 32 quarts of tolerable syrup. 
The next day, I selected 10 canes, the heads of which 
were fully matured, 10 more in full milk, 10 more, tlie 
heads of which were just fully developed and tlie top seed 
beginning to turn black, and again 10, comprising all 
these stages, but from which I did not strip the leaves. 
They were all passed through the mill 7 times, and yield- 
ed nearly the same quantity of juice — about 3 quarts for 
every 10 canes. The juice, tested by the sacchrometre 
showed that the youngest cane had rather the most and 
oldest rather the least saccharine matter. The whole to- 
gether, with that of a few other good canes, exhibited at 
80 degrees of the thermometer 24^ degs, of the sacchro- 
nietre. From 42 pints of the juice I obtained, after 4 hours 
boiling, 9 pints of rather better syrup than that made the 
-day before. In these boilings I mixed with the cold juice 
about a teaspoonful of lime-water of the consistency of 
cream for every 5 gallons. 
These selected cane, grew on the best spot on the patch 
and where corn probably might have been produced the 
present season at the rate of 20 bushels per acre. They 
were 1 inch in diameter, at the largest end, and feet 
long after cutting off the head and a foot of the stem. 
After this I cut down all the inferior cane and cured it 
for forage. 
On the 28th of July, two of the members of the Club 
(Dr. Bradford and Mr. H. Lamar) being at my house, re- 
mained to see the result of pressing and boiling 400 canes 
I had cut and stripped. Each of us selected 10 canes, 
and put them through the press 8 times ; the result being, 
as before, about 3 quarts for every 10 canes. But even 
after the pressure, juice could be wrung from the canes by 
the hand, and we agreed that at least one-fourth of it, and 
that the best, remained in the cane — so inefficient was my 
mill. The rest of the cane I ordered should be pressed 6 
times, but we did not ourselves remain to see it done, nor 
did we count the 400 canes. The yield of the whole, 
however, was 37^ quarts. With the thermometer at 85 
degrees in the juice, the sacchrometre stood 242 degrees. 
We boiled the juice until it run together on the rim of the 
ladle and hung in a transparent sheet half an inch below 
it before falling. And this in 22 hours. The result was 6 
quarts of choice syrup. The next day I repeated the ex- 
periment on a larger scale, with equal success, and I have 
brought to the Club enough of the syrup to enable every 
member to try it and judge of its quality. All who have 
tasted it agree that it is equal to the best that we get from 
New Orleans. In these last boilings, I put a tablespoonful 
of lime-water, prepared as before, to every 10 gallons. 
The whole process of clarifying and boiling was carried 
through in the same pot, and that very unsuitable from 
its depth. 
I measured the grain from a number of heads, and the 
result was an average of a gill from each. I weighed a 
half peck of matured grain after several days exposure to 
the sun. It weighed 4§ lbs., equal to 38 lbs. per bushel. 
I weighed 20 of the best caijie cut for forage, after it was 
cured sufficiently to house. They weighed 24 lbs., equal 
to 30,000 lbs., for 25,000 canes, which I think might be 
grown on land that would make 25 bushels of corn with 
average seasons. I have tried horses, cattle and hogs, 
and find they eat the cane, its leaves and seed greedily, 
and fowls and pigeons the last. I think, however, that 
when allowed to mature the cane should be cut up fine for 
animals, as the outer coat is hard. 
I did not attempt to make sugar, not having prepared 
for that. There can, however, be no doubt that sugar can 
be made from such syrup as this. And, as they make 
more syrup in the West Indies per acre than they do in 
Louisiana, only because the cane matures better, it is not 
unreasonable to infer that the Millet, which matures here 
perfectly, and will even make two crops in one year, will 
yield more and better sugar than the Louisiana Cane. 
Beginning to cut cane as soon as the head is fully de- 
veloped, it may be cut for a month before it will all ripen 
— how long after that I do not know. A succession of 
crops might be easily arranged so as to insure cutting and 
boiling from the 1st of July — probably earlier — until frost. 
I have housed some stalks immediately from the field to 
ascertain, hereafter, whether thus treated it will yied juice 
and make syrup next winter. 
A good sugar mill with three wooden rollers may be 
erected for less than S25, and a sugar boiler that will make 
30 gallons of syrup per day may be purchased in Augusta 
for less than S60. 
This Millet, will, of course, mix with any other variety 
of the Millet family planted near it. Unfortunately I 
planted Broom Corn about a hundred yards from mine, 
and shall therefore have to procure seed elsewhere for the 
ten acres 1 intend planting next year. 
I have now stated the chief particulars of my experi- 
ment. Every member of thd Club is competent to draw 
his own conclusions. A single experiment — especially 
one in agriculture — is rarely conclusive. I may err my- 
self and might cause others to err, were I to express, with 
any emphasis the opinion I at present entertain of the 
value of this recently introduced plant. 
J. H. H.iMMOXD. 
THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
The Chinese Sugar Cane has come to be the ordinary 
name of the Sorgho Sucre, a most valuable plant of the 
sugar cane order, and, therefore, allied to the maize or 
Indian corn, but more nearly to the broom corn. Its cul- 
tivation has commenced amongst us, and there is now in 
Washington more than an acre of it growing luxuriantly 
and promising a yield of considerably upwards of a hun- 
dred bushels of seed, besides many tons of stems and 
foliage, rich with saccharine fluid and solid food material 
for horses, neat cattle, and swine. Not only here, but in 
various and widely distant parts of the Union has trial 
been made of it, and with uniform gratifying results. We 
have read a letter from a farmer in Illinois who has tested 
its character, and reports of it in the most favorable man- 
ner.* Out of a gallon of the liquid sap in the stem, which 
'"Seeds of the Chinese Sugar Cane were also distributed to a 
limited extent from the United States Patent Office during the 
spring and summer of 185.5. The plant is much better calculated 
for the South than for any other section of the Union — the climate 
being quite similar to that in which it originated. It stands drouth 
much better than common com ; and, as we have before stated, re- 
tains its leaves green and juicy until the full maturity of the grain. 
D. B. Plumb &. Co., of this city, will receive orders for the seed to 
be furnished in October. Seetheir advertisement.— E ds. So. Cult. 
