350 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
CHINESE AND AFRICAN SUGAR CANE. 
An Essay read before the Executive Committee, at the Meeting in February, 1859. 
[See page 225, of this Vol .] 
BY J. G. KNAPP, OF MADISON. 
At tlie meeting of the Executive Committee of the State 
Agricultural Society, in 1858, a premium list was made out for 
the best specimens of sugar and syrup manufactured in this 
State from the Sugar Cane. To render the competition as 
complete as possible, the Society gratuitously distributed some 
10,000 packages of the seed of the Chinese Sugar Cane among 
the citizens of Wisconsin. From them and other seed already 
in the State, thousands of gallons of molasses have been pro¬ 
duced, many families manufacturing nearly all their molasses 
for the present year. So much has been accomplished that it 
• 
may be safely said that the growth of the Cane and its manu¬ 
facture into sugar and molasses is now a fixed fact in this State. 
T (vo very distinct varieties of the plant have been introduced 
into the United States—the Chinese Sorghum Saccharatum 
and the African Imphea Saccharata. The latter, scarcely 
known here, has been but slightly experimented with as yet, 
though it promises exceedingly well. The Chinese Cane on 
good corn land frequently reaches the bight of fifteen feet, and 
when exposed to strong winds and storms is inclined to fall 
down, in the hills. The plants produce seed panicles on a 
whisk but little inferior to broom corn, and but little more pro¬ 
lific in quantity of seeds. It is plainly the true Sugar Cane 
of Mauritas, reproduced from seeds by the laborious perseve- 
rence of the Chinaman, which while it retains the saccharine 
matters of its progenitors, has also become an annual plant, in 
our latitude. 
