CHINESE AND AFRICAN SUGAR CANE. 
351 
The African Cane is more nearly akin to the dourah corn, 
which has been cultivated in the north of Africa from time im¬ 
memorial, on account of its seeds, which have been used as food 
for man and beast. The heads are compact and yield a very 
large quantity of grain, scarcely darker than the seeds of the 
broom corn. The plants are seldom above eight feet in height, 
and the reeds are larger than the Chinese, and will seldom be 
blown down. 
At the last meeting of the Executive Committee, a liberal 
premium list having been again provided for the competitors in 
the manufacture of this article, ($100 for the best sugar and 
machinery for its manufacture, the sugar to be made on the 
Fair Grounds), and the writer of this paper having been named 
on the Committee of Judges, I have deemed it best to give all 
the information I can to the farmers of the State, that if by 
chance, efforts worthy of the reward may be undertaken in 
time. 
The first rude experiments have not always been successful. 
This might be expected, where men undertake to deal with an 
unknown substance. At first, all failed to convert the juice 
into sugar. Some even asserted that it contained none. The 
next mail brought the fact that the chemists had noted and an¬ 
alysed the juice of the ripe plants, and discovered no percep¬ 
tible difference between it and the juice of the Southern Sugar 
Cane. They declared that it would make sugar, if the right 
method were pursued. 
The prices paid for sugar, and the increased demand, 
caused, not more by the increased use, than by the settle¬ 
ment of the vast plains of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, in 
which the sugar maple is almost an unknown tree, made men 
in those regions anxious enquirers after any and every means 
to get a supply of that necessary article, sugar. All inquired 
— all read. Some became almost maniacs, and went headlong 
into the culture of Sorghum. Money was spent in blind ex¬ 
periments, in which most failed to make sugar, or even molas¬ 
ses. Many were discouraged and left their crop to rot where 
it had grown. 
