ANNUAL REPORT—AGRICULTURE. 
27 
and disgraces our western farmers, more observable than in 
their manner of harvesting and curing their grass and grain 
crops. The exercise of a little common sense, and a good de¬ 
gree of thrift and thoroughness in these matters would add 
millions of dollars per annum to the results ot their labor. 
SORGHUM AND IMPHEE 
Have settled down upon the basis predicted in our last re¬ 
port. The farmers are few in number who still expect to see 
them become a staple production in this latitude. And yet 
there are many who, having learned the art of their cultiva¬ 
tion, who being also possessed of the requisite machinery for 
the manufacture of the syrup, and who having more fully con¬ 
quered their first prejudices against its peculiar flavor, continue 
their cultivation for domestic use, notwithstanding the de¬ 
cline in price of the southern and imported sugars and syrups. 
During the year there was even prospect of a revival of this 
interest; but we are no less confident, on this account, that the 
true habitat of this kind of plants is in a lower latitude, and 
that sorghum can never become a staple crop in Wisconsin. It 
rendered the north an important service in a time of need, 
and there is but little doubt that for latitudes well adapted to 
its cultivation, it will yet prove a valuable and permanent ad¬ 
dition to the list of staple crops of the United States. 
THE SUGAR BEET, AND BEET-SUGAR. 
' s 
Kesolute in their purpose to find some source of supply 
that should make them independent, in a measure at least, of 
their southern neighbors and of the world, the northern states 
are now undertaking the cultivation, as an experiment, of an¬ 
other sugar-producing plant—the sugar beet. It is by no 
means an original experiment, however ; only a test as to its 
adaptability to the soils and climate of this country. In Eu¬ 
rope the cultivation of it for sugar has been practiced for more 
than a half century ; and, as was remarked in my last report, 
there seems so little reason to doubt its equal success in the 
United States that American agriculturists and capitalists are 
fairly warranted in giving the matter a thorough and patient trial. 
