Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/646

630 varieties it looks not unlike broom-corn (Sorghum vulgare), to which it is also related.

There are many modifications, or so-called "sub-varieties," of sorghum, which differ greatly in height, size, weight, and general appearance. Some varieties mature in Minnesota in about one hundred days from planting (as the Early Amber), while other varieties are only ripened to perfection in the Southern States (as the Honduras). Although there are more than one hundred real or imaginary "sub-varieties" of sorghum within the limits of the United States, it is probably safe to say that the question of profitable sugar-production may be determined from experiments made with a few typical varieties, originally known as Chinese and African.

The first Chinese sorghum was imported into this country in 1853, from the noted house of Vilmorin, in France. In 1857 the African varieties, some sixteen in number, were brought to this country from Natal by an English merchant, named Leonard Wray. "To these African varieties the general name imphees was given, while to the variety from China the name Chinese sugar-cane was given." So-called hybrids have been extensively advertised, yet the weight of evidence is against hybridization of the different sorghums, and the new varieties are probably the products of mixed seed.

During the progress of the civil war, sorghum played no unimportant part in helping to supply a portion of the deficiency in our imports of sugar. In many of the Western States, notably Ohio and Illinois, great amounts of sorghum-molasses were made by the farmers with crude and inexpensive apparatus. Usually the sirup had a peculiar, sharp taste, due to imperfect purification of the juice, the use of lime for this purpose not being generally understood. As a rule, also, the canes were crushed while still unripe, and consequently not containing the maximum amount of sugar. In spite of these unfavorable conditions, the reports that sugar had crystallized from these sirups were not infrequent.

At the close of the war many who had made sorghum-sirup again preferred to buy foreign sugar and molasses. The introduction of glucose-sirups may also have been instrumental in diverting attention from sorghum, and, for ten or more years, comparatively little was heard of the new sugar-plant.

About the year 1876 it was again brought into public notice through very favorable results, obtained by farmers in the Northwestern States, in the production of sirup from the variety known as Minnesota Early Amber.

So many and frequent were the requests that this plant be investigated, that General William G. Le Duc, a Minnesota man, upon his accession to the office of Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1877, determined that the possibilities of this sugar-plant should be accurately ascertained for the benefit of all who were concerned.