Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
SORGHUM SUGAE INDUSTRY. 29 PRODUCTION OF SUGAR FROM SORGHUMâFAILURE AND SUCCESS. Repeated failures in the cultivation of sorghum for crystallized sugar as a commercial undertaking had naturally produced distrust of all attempts to renew an industry attended already by many disappoint- ments. It is not, therefore, without reason that some decided successes in making sugar from sorghum on a large manufacturing scale should be demanded before these unfavorable convictions should yield. to new evidence. Considering the former discordant and unsettled state of opinion on this subject, as already set forth in the opening of this report, we can hardly wonder that failure was the rule and success the exception in the former attempts to produce sugar from sorghum. The juice of sorghum even in its best state of development is an extremely delicate and unstable solution of sugar, passing rapidly from sucrose to glucose under the influence of various factors which act to transform it, unless manipulated with skill and in suitable apparatus. These conditions are rarely met at the hands of the small or unskillful cultivator or manu- facturer. Hence sirup and not sugar was the result in the great majority of attempts at sugar making; a result by no means without consider- able value to the farmer, however unsatisfactory to the sugar boiler. These negative results in the light of our present knowledge and expe- rience prove nothing but the want of attention to conditions essential to success. FAILURE AT THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN 1S81. The failure to obtain not only sugar, but even a reasonable quantity of sirup, from the sorghum crop planted in 1881 for the Department of Agriculture on about 135 acres of land near Washington, is an illus- tration of the importance of adhesion in practice to the principles de- veloped in the laboratory. It appears from the full statements of the Report of 1882 that, owing to various causes, much of the Washington crop was three times planted, Analyses of sediment and scum of sorghum in sugar making. Sedi* ment. Scum.. Per cent. 16 28 Per cent. 9 53 8 06 27 00. 33 81 38 83 40 86 23 98 99.01 99.34 19 49 13 07 Potash (KyO) 12.36 19 81 Soda (NazO) .-- 3 87 6 03 Lime (CaO) 32 13 26 43 2 42 1 92 1 04 2 62 Chlorine (Cl) 2 34 6 02 6 IB 2 39 Silica .. . .. 27 81 23 40 10 01 10 93 98.16 99.55 2 55 1 46. These analyses are from Dr. Collier
28 SORGHUM SUGAR INDUSTRY. chief factors vary but little, even for a period of three months* or more, provided the season does not change; e. g., an early maturiug variety of sorghum holds its own until frost; a later variety has a shorter work- ing period. 4th. That while varieties of sorghum differ greatly in rapidity of growth and time of reaching maturity, in .size, weight, and consequent yield per acre, it appears that all varieties of sorghum resemble each other in developing at maturity, under the same conditions, nearly the same maximum percentages of cane-sugar, glucose, and solids, the cane- sugar maxima varying from 14 to 16 per cent. of the total weight of the expressed juice, the other factors being as stated under 2d.t 5th. The soil best adapted to the growth of a good crop of sorghum for sugar appears to be a sandy loam.J This plant thrives on soils and in climates too light and dry for maize, and makes the best "stand" when grown closer than Indian corn admits in a given locality. 6th. While good sirup may be produced from sorghum as a domestic industry and on a limited scale over a very wide range of country, the successful production of crystallized sugar on a commercial scale ap- pears to demand the skill and appliances of a sugar-house conducted in a systematic manner and with ample capital. 7th. The best results in sugar are obtained only when the ripe cane is manufactured on the same day (twenty-four hours) in which it is cut from the field. 8th. The seed of ripe sorghum is a valuable feed crop, comparable for fattening animals with maize, and in product is equal to from 2£ to 4 bushels per ton of cane. 9th. About 40 per cent. of the juice of sorghum is lost in the begasse, as it is to nearly the same extent in tropical sugar-cane, more than one- half of which loss may possibly be saved to the crop by processes under investigation. 10th. Of other residual products, the scum and sediment, rich in vari- ous elements of fertility, are now thrown away. (For the constituents of these waste products see the analyses at foot of page 29.) The begasse, when treated by a pulping machine, gives a valuable paper stock. Treated as a fertilizer, the begasse will return to the soil a portion of what the plant has borrowed from it in its growth. In regions where fuel is dear the begasse can be used with advantage as fuel. * A louger working period than three months has developed-itself by the experience n Texas upon the "Orange" variety. See letter of Colonel Richards of date Sep- tember 25, 1882, in the Appendix. tThis generalization appears fully justified by the work done at the Department of Agriculture and for the latitude of Washington; but it is yet an open question how far different sorts of sorghum may vary with climate and soil, two factors of commanding importance as yet imperfectly known. t For considerations of soil and climate, as well as fertilizers, reference may be had to the text, where these subjects are discussed, as well as to various statements in the Appendix.
