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SORGHUM SUGAR INDUSTRY. 23 Agriculture, however intelligently pursued, is more of an art than a science. Hence the ultimate profitableness of any agricultural crop introduced into a region new to it can only be determined by actual trial through a series of years. The nature of the economical problem is such that science cannot predict the result. It can, however, render great aid in making success more probable, and in hastening it where it otherwise might be much delayed. It can suggest means and meth- ods, can indicate promising directions for experiment, can aid in fore- seeing and overcoming many difficulties, suggest remedies for mishaps, and in a multitude of ways aid in solving the practical problem. This is especially true when the crop is to be manufactured into a commercial product, and emphatically so in the production of sugar, the whole economical aspects of which have been changed by the aid of modern science. No agricultural species can be cultivated profitably everywhere within its range of actual growth, and it is yet to be demonstrated where the best regions are for the most profitable growth of sorghum. This is only partly an agricultural problem ; it is as intimately related to the question of winning the sugar in the best form and at the least expense. For the solution of the latter, scientific work is needed. It can ulti- mately be done in the sugar-house; it may be more quickly done, and with vastly greater economy, if this be aided by the scientific labora- tory. The profitable production of sugar from cane, as now pursued in Louisiana, and from beets, as pursued in Europe, was achieved only by such aid. The methods of extracting sugar from these two great sources are very unlike, and each was developed along with scientific investiga- tion instituted for each special plant. Sorghum still needs this. The work so nobly begun and successfully pursued by the Agricultural Department is still incomplete and unfinished. To use an agricultural simile, the crop has been sown, but the harvest has not been reaped. Agriculturally, the sorghum question is solved, so far as it "can be until science now does her share. That the crop may be widely and economically grown, containing a satisfactory amount of cane-sugar, is sufficiently proved. All the problem remaining unsolved relates to the extraction of sugar. In view of the magnitude of the interests involved, the results already obtained, and the wide attention the matter is now receiving, we feel that there are most encouraging indications of prac- tical success. VALUE OF THE RESEARCH IN A MATERIAL SENSE TO THE NATION. Aside from the value of this research from a scientific standpoint, illustrating as it does the importance of obtaining from an extended investigation the facts and their mutual relations in an agronomic prob- lem, the results obtained appear to this Committee to possess a high value, in a material sense, to the nation. Whether the cultivation of a crop like sorghum, deriving its support largely from the atmosphere and water, since it appears to thrive best upon light soils, may or may not reward the cultivator better tl^an the growth of cereals, it certainly adds a new factor to agriculture, of value not only as a sugar-producing plant, but also as a food plant of no mean quality. It thrives over a very wide area, and, as we have shown, de- velops in the warm and temperate latitudes more than a single crop per annum, and becomes, certainly in one of its varieties, perennial. But the work is also of national importance in its relation to existing
