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20 SOEGHDM SUGAR INDUSTRY. submitted to the commiteeby the honorable Commissioner of Agricult- ure, supplemented by the personal inspection of the chemical methods in use in the laboratory of the Department in Washington by members of the Committee; by the examination of Dr. Collier before the Committee in more than one session, at New Haven, where he was invited for this purpose; and, lastly, by correspondence during the whole period cov- ered by the work of this Committee. To secure the results of other chemists and workers in this field of research, correspondence has been opened by this Committee with those who responded to circulars sent out asking for co-operation and infor- mation on the sorghum question. The results of these inquiries will be found appended, with acknowl- edgments to those who have so efficiently aided the work of the Com- mittee on both the scientific and economic side of this investigation. A full digest and analytical summary of the present state of our knowledge of this subject is presented in Part II of this Report.* It will be observed that the existence of sugar in the stalks of maize is frequently mentioned in the several reports of the Department of Agriculture, and comparative statements are made between the sorghum sugar results and those obtained in a parallel series of experiments con- ducted at this Department upon maize. This subject was not specifically referred to this Committee, nor have they devoted much time to its consideration. It was, however, found convenient to give the results in brief, for what they may be worth, and without expressing an opinion on their practical value. The analytical methods of investigation employed were the same with those used in the investigation of sorghum. There appeared to be no sufficient reason for omitting these comparisons, which are intimately woven into the text of the several documents before us. Whether these results may or may not be reproduced in field culture on a large scale and with commercial success are points requiring. further experimental tests, and on these points the Committee are not now prepared to ex- press any opinion. THE AGRICULTURAL CHARACTERS OF SORGHUM. The cultivated varieties of sorghum, considered botauically, are cereals. They belong more especially to that very small group of cereal species which have been cultivated from the dawn of history and have devel- oped along with our civilization. During ages of culture they have so changed under the hand of man that we are ignorant as to their native countries, and know not what their original wild progenitors were. Their descendants now exist in a vast number of varieties, which differ so greatly among themselves that neither scientific botanists nor practical cultivators are agreed as to what are true species and what mere vari- eties which have arisen in cultivation. The cultivated varieties of sorghum have been placed in the genera Holcus, Andropogon, and Sorghum by different botanists, the latter being the name now accepted. * For a fuller notice of the literature of sorghum, reference is made to a " Bibliography of Sorghum," which will also be found in the appendix to this report. The Committee are aware that many titles of memoirs, scattered through a wide range of periodical literature in various languages, might be added, but it has not been in their power to make the search required to complete the list. The librarian of the Department of Agriculture has rendered efficient aid in compiling this biblio- graphy.
SORGHUM SUGAR INDUSTRY. 21 A generation ago botanists grouped the numerous cultivated varieties into a considerable number of distinct species, without agreement as to how many; five or six were generally believed to exist. Certain varieties of durra, with the grain in a somewhat loose panicle, and which were more especially cultivated in Asia and in Southern Europe, were classed as one species called Sorghum (Holcus or Andropogon) vulgare; the vari- eties with the grain in a densely contracted panicle, grown more largely in Africa, and known as Guinea-corn, Egyptian durra, Moorish millet, &c., were grouped into another species, called, 8. cernuum; the variety best known as chocolate-corn was the S. bicolor; broom-corn and all the sugar-producing kinds were classed together as S. saccharatum; and other specific names were applied to smaller groups of these varieties. But the investigations of modern science have gradually led to the belief that all the numerous varieties once classed in the several species above enumerated had a common origin and constitute but a single species, to which the old name Sorghum vulgare is now applied. This is now the belief of the most eminent botanists of the world. Some even go further and believe that all the cultivated varieties of the genus, including the spiked millets (Sorghum (Holcus) spicatum), are the descendants of a single original parental species. These conclusions have a most important bearing upon the subject of this special investigation. It is a law of nature that the longer a species is cultivated and the wider its cultivation extends the more easily it changes into new varie- ties and the wider the differences between the varieties become. Some species, however, have a much greater capacity for variation than others, and Sorghum vulgare stands pre-eminent among the useful plants for this character. The usefulness of any agricultural species is intimately correlated with its capacity for variation in cultivation, for this means capacity for the improvement of varieties by the only means known to cultiva- tors by which such improvements may be effected. It also means ca- pacity for adaptation to varied conditions of soil, climate, and natural surroundings, and, furthermore, adaptation to various methods of cult- ure and to various uses. It is a sort of plasticity which allows the species to be molded in the hands of the intelligent cultivator. This species (Sorghum vulgare) has varied more widely under culti- vation than any other cereal, unless it be Indian corn. The varieties differ in all their characters, in height, fruitfulness, habit of growth, grain, stalk, leaf, panicle, chemical composition, preference of soil, climate, and exposure, and so on to all the differences in which species themselves differ. Its cultivation has extended to most of the warm and many of the temperate climates of the globe, and it has adapted itself to the varied uses and more varied agricultural methods of nearly all the civilized races of mankind. The agricultural success of any plant in a country depends in part upon its fitness to the soil and climate, and in part to a variety of other conditions, one of which is that it must fill some place in the agricult- ure of that country better than the other species competing with it. Sentiment and local customs are also factors, but which have less force in this country than in others. Durra, Guinea-corn, broom-corn, and probably also chocolate-corn, were introduced into this country in colonial times. During the days of more imperfect tools and machinery, and of difficult transportation, all our agricultural crops were of necessity grown upon a much smaller scale than now, and on most farms a greater variety of crops were grown
22 80RGHUM SUGAR INDUSTRY. than now. Most if not all the agricultural plants of the Old World were tried here, and many had a wide and sparse cultivation until well into the present century, and then disappeared under the new conditions of our agriculture. The cultivation of others became specialized. Varie- ties of this species may be found in both these categories. Durra and Guinea-corn were widely introduced, and they lingered in cultivation until crowded out by Indian corn. They were dropped just as many other minor crops were; they did not fill a place in our modern agri- culture so well as some other species did, and now are only found in regions where Indian corn does not grow so well. particularly in the States which border on Mexico. Chocolate-corn (the old 8. bicolor) was cultivated here and there as a poor substitute for coffee, but under the changed conditions of things it has entirely disappeared from our fields and gardens, crowded out by imported and better coffee. Broom-corn, also introduced in colonial times, was widely cultivated ; forty years ago very many persons grew enough for their own use or for local sale. It supplied a certain want better than anything else, consequently it could not be crowded out, but under the conditions of modern agriculture its cultivation has become specialized and concen- trated in fewer localities, in some of which it has assumed an impor- tance found nowhere else in the world. It has been greatly improved, and the cultivation of American varieties has now extended to the Old World. About thirty years ago the sugar-yielding sorghum was introduced. Filling a certain place on our farms better than any other plant previ- ously tried, it spread in cultivation with a rapidity no other agricult- ural plant ever did before in this or any other country, and is the only one adapted to a wide region introduced into the United States since colonial times which has become of sufficient importance to be enumer- ated in the census. It has become the " sorghum " of common language, and its cultivation has extended the whole length and breadth of the country. Its adaptation to our soil and climate is abundantly demonstrated, and its capacity for improvement also thoroughly proven. The Depart- ment of Agriculture has already examined more than forty varieties, some of which have originated in this country. We have now varieties with very unlike characters; some mature in feO days, others require twice as long a time, and one variety has become in a sense perennial, a fact not true of any other cereal species grown in the country. They vary in habit of growth and in sugar-content; the two extremes have been developed hereâthe one as rich as Louisiana sugar-cane, the other the broom-corn, so poor in sugar. Belonging to such a plastic species, with such adaptation to a wide range of soil and climate, with such capacity for modification and im- provement, already in such wide cultivation, and promising to meet such a definite want in our agricultural production, it is certain that, in obe- dience to natural laws, some of the existing varieties may be greatly improved, and that new ones may be made, some of which will better serve the ends we are now seeking than any varieties we now have. No efforts have yet been made to increase the sugar-content by syste- matic, intelligent, and long-continued selection. In the light of the successful results of experiment in this direction with sugar-beets, and with the abundant experience we have with other species as to other results attained by such processes, we have much to hope as to im- provement in this character with a species which has been so variously molded to the uses of man.
