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
30 SORGHUM SUGAR INJJU8TKY. the last planting being after the middle of June,* thus producing a very imperfect crop, little, if any, of which was in a fit state to be cut and manufactured. On this point the statements of Peter Lynch, the sugar boiler, are con- clusive, there being, as he says, but two days, October 4 and 5, when he received cane in even a reasonably mature state, and from this he readily produced sugar. The report of Assistant Parsons, who had immediate charge of the chemical and other work in the mill, will be read with interest as a conclusive statement of the several causes of failure made by an expert of ample experience. The insignificant quantity of seed obtained-from 93£ acres of sorghum (the other 40 odd acres were too immature to be cut before severe frost), viz, 150 bushels, or 1§ bushels per acre, is sufficient evidence of the im- maturity of this crop as a whole, and sufficiently explains why even the sirup fell far below the normal quantity. A reference to the statement of Professor Cook, of New Jersey, State chemist (see Appendix 1, p. 74), shows that the yield of seed from 700 acres of sorghum in that State in 1881 was, even from an imperfect crop, 20 bushels to the acre. COMPARATIVE FAILURE OF THE FARIBAULT WORKS. The statement of Captain R. Blakely, of Saint Paul, is of interest in this connection. In his letter to this Committee, of date April 18,1882, he states the results obtained by him at the Fairbault works, very im- perfectly constructed and disadvantageously placed for the delivery of cane, which were commercially a failure, although producing some 15,000 pounds of good sugar, samples of which he has placed in our hands. This witness states his conviction that sorghum sugarâ Is to be one of the great industries of this country. * * * If it can have the fostering care of the Government until it can be established, it will astonish the country. SUCCESSES. One signal success, on a large scale, obtained by intelligent attention to the results of experimental research and skillful culture, opens the way to a repetition of like results. Among the following examples are several of an equivocal nature, presented simply as illustrative of the importance of observing closely the conditions essential to success, as now made clear to cultivators by the researches of Dr. Collier, but which before this time were imperfectly understood or very badly applied even by fairly intelligent operators. * "Notes on sorghum planted on Dr. J. W. Dean's farm 1881," are in the hands of this Committee, being a diary of his work in planting and cultivating 44 acres of sorghum for the Department of Agriculture. By this record it appears that the Hon- duras planted May 14, 15, and 16, was replanted Jnue 2, and that he, "June 18, began second replanting of Honduras," and "June 20, finished second replanting of Hon- duras," and June 20, " began second replanting of Early Orange "; June 21, " finished Early Orange 10 a. m.,aud began second replanting of Liberian"; "June 22, finished replanting Liberian; June 29, used Early Amber in replanting a few rows of Liberiau and began second replanting of Neazana." Also Mr. L. J. Culver, the farmer who sowed about 60 acres of sorghum for the Department of Agriculture in 1881, makes the following statement of his planting: " On Tuesday, May 10, commenced planting, using Link's Hybrid and Early Amber seed; planted about 30 acres of each variety, but very little of it sprouted, owing to the cold damp weather that immediately followed the sowing. On May 27, com- menced replanting the same varieties. This lot of seed was nearly all destroyed by worms. June 7, commenced replanting the third time, and finished the work June 18. The third lot of seed was rolled in coal tar, in order to drive away the worms. It sprouted quickly, but on July 15 cane did not average one foot in height. Com- menced harvesting on September 19." (See Agricultural Report for 1882.)
