a 
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 37 
topped cane, 130} pounds of sugar, &nd fifteen and one-half 
- gallons of molasses per ton of cane. 
In view, therefore, of the results obtained in the eullmakion of 
sorghum these last two years, which seasons do not appear to 
have been in any way exceptionably favorable, I can not but repeat 
what was said in the report of last year: “Cane of this quality 
could be worked very profitably for sugar, but in this northerly 
latitude it will be found advisable to limit the manufacture to the 
production of syrup, which is already being produced in this sec- 
tion of the State of excellent quality, and commands _a ready sale 
at good prices. 
“Tt would seem that several farmers could combine in estab- 
lishing a suitable factory, and thereby greatly lessen the cost of 
manuiacture, improve the quality of the product and produce at 
good profit an abundant supply of excellent syrup.” 
INVESTIGATION OF THE GRASSES. 
In connection with the dairy industry, there is no subject of | 
greater importance than a study of our native and other grasses 
and at present this matter 1s receiving more than usual attention. 
In fact the hay crop, from every consideration, deserves especial 
attention, occupying, as it does, so large a portion, over one-half 
of our cultivated land (55.75 per cent), constituting nearly two- 
thirds of the weight (65.75 per cent), of all our principal farm 
crops, and removing, as it does, annually from our lands, over nine 
times as much potash as all the other crops combined; the hay 
crop containing 92.23 per cent of all the potash present in the 
marketed crops; there is found also in the hay crop, nearly three- 
fifths of all the phosphoric acid present in our leading farm crops, 
the hay crop containing 58.92 per cent of all the phosphoric acid 
present in leading crops of the State. 
By means of the statistical reports of the Depar aires of Agri- 
culture during the last quarter of a century, it is found that the 
acreage in the six leading cereals grown in the State, was less 
during the last five years of the above period than it was during 
the first five years, (it having decreased 6.15 per cent), and that the 
acreage in hay had increased 38.43 per cent during the last five 
years, over what it was during the first five. 
Again, while the average aggregate value of the cereals had 
decreased 47.52 per cent from the first period of five years as com- 
