Am.  Jour.  Pharm.l 
May,  1884.  J 
Sorghum  Sugar. 
257 
shorter  time  to  attain  maturity,  and  are  therefore  especially  adapted 
for  the  more  northern  range,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  etc.,  where  the 
season  is  rather  short ;  while  the  countries  further  south,  with  a  longer 
season,  have  the  advantage,  that  they  can  utilize  both  the  early  and 
late  varieties,  and  thus  be  able  to  supply  the  mills  for  a  longer  time ; 
besides  that  they  also  can  utilize  the  other  qualities,  desirable  in  good 
cane,  as  saccharine  richness,  large  percentage  of  juice,  and  large  stalks. 
A  rather  sandy  loam  is  said  to  be  the  most  favorable  soil  for  its 
cultivation. 
The  first  seeds  of  the  new  sugar  cane  were  brought  to  America  in 
1854,  from  France,  where  they  had  been  imported  from  China  only  a 
few  years  previous.  Not  long  afterwards  also  seeds  of  the  African 
variety  found  their  way  over  here.  And  now  sorghum  is  to  be  found 
cultivated  almost  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  where  the  climate 
is  favorable  to  its  growth  ;  and  it  is  said  that  where  maize  will  thrive, 
sorghum  also  will. 
Its  principal  use  has,  until  lately,  been  confined  to  the  mere  pro- 
duction of  syrup,  as  a  very  sweet,  and  to  most  persons,  agreeable  arti- 
cle of  this  kind  may  be  prepared  by  means  of  quite  inexpensive  machi- 
nery. But  the  production  of  a  cheap,  marketable  sugar  from  it,  has, 
until  the  last  three  years,  met  with  no  success.  Sugar  has  of  course 
been  produced  from  it  long  before  this,  but  on  account  of  inferior 
machinery  and  limited  means  it  would  not  pay.  It  is  also  said  that  a 
fatty  substance  is  contained  in  the  juice  of  sorghum,  which  hindered 
the  crystallization  of  the  sugar,  and  necessitated  another  process  than 
that  used  for  the  common  sugar  cane.  The  first  sugar  reported 
obtained  from  sorghum,  was  made  by  a  farmer  in  Wisconsin  (accord- 
ing to  Prof.  Carl  Mohr).  In  1858,  J.  S.  Levering,  a  chemist  of  Phila- 
delphia, received  the  gold  medal  from  the  United  States  Agricultural 
Society,  as  an  acknowledgment  for  his  successful  and  meritorious 
experiments  in  sugar  making  from  sorghum  ("  Amer.  Jour.  Phar.," 
1855,  p.  182;  1858,  p.  105).  In  spite  of  the  publication  of  his  pro- 
cess, no  attempt  was  made  to  utilize  it.  Later,  through  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  at  Washington,  G.  \Y. 
Le  Due,  a  great  deal  was  done  in  order  to  arouse  the  interest  for  it, 
that  new  experiments  should  be  undertaken.  Steward,  a  Pennsyl- 
vania chemist,  also  treated  the  subject,  and  showed  at  the  Centennial 
Exhibition,  in  1876,  samples  of  sugar  which  he  had  obtained  by  his 
experiments.    With  still  greater  energy  Dr.  Collier,  chemist  of  the 
17 
