The daily gazette., 1880-03-10
SECOND EDITION
Great Fortunes in Corn Stalks.

SUGAR ENOUGH TO BE MADE FROM
THEM WIPE OUT THE PUBL @ DEBT IN
- 10 YEARs-CoRN-sTALK TO SUPER
sEDE CANE, SORGHUM OR BEET ROOT.
WASHINGTON, March 6.-The most
remarkable results from experiments in
sugar making obtained by Prof. Collyer
in the government agricultural Office
here, were from Indian corn, from an
acre of land planted last year with com
mon. white field corn, known as the
horse tooth, from the shape of its kernel,
lac gathered the ears when fully ripe,
and their yield of sbelled corn was sixty
nine and one-tenth bushels s-more tn an
double the average crop per acre of the
country at large. Next stripping and
grinding the sta k and working up their
juice by the new processes, he extracted
from 1t $50 pounds, or nearly half ton
OF sugar of good quality. Here, then,
from the stalks-thrown out by our far
mers into the refuse of the barnyard as
TT only to be reduced TO manure q
more profitable crop has been obtained
than the corn. Nor is this all. The pull
verified talks, after the extraction of the
saccharine juice Ito the extent nov prac-
ticable sixty per cent?, have proved
nutritious food for cattle, from their ele-
inents of starch and nitrogen retained.
Applying this extract of sugar to the
Indian corn of the United States-that
is, to the rejected corn-stalks-they
would give us an income which, within
the brief period Of ten years, would
extinguish our national debt.
Incredible as this fact may appear it is
deducibe from the produce of $50 pounds
of sugar obtained from the stalks of an
acre of Indian corn, in addition to their
yield of sixty nine bushel of good she'll
ed corn. Or take 1t in another from.
Pu ting our Indian corn crop at the aver
age of $400, 200, 900 In value, and estim-
ating the sugar in the stalks at only half
the value of the corn, with the product
ION OF so vast an amount Of sugar we
have still 10 these corn stalks gold and
silver to the amount of $500, 600, 900
more than double the sum of the gold
and silver extracted from all our mines
between the British Dominions and
Mexico, and equal in value to the cotton
crop of all our Southern States.
NAPoLEoN's BEST CoNQU EST.
When the First Napoleon, when Fra
nee, under the blockade of the English
navy, was cut off from her foieign sup
plies, offered reward OF 1000, ,OOOf, for
ii home produced substitute for the sugar
of the West Iudies which could be pro
duced equal to the wants of tn French
people, he secured a reward worth incal.
culably more to France than all his vict-
ories in the battle field-a reffard the
value of which cannot be reached in the
millions of money saved to France in her
beet root sugar. How, then, can we
estimate the value of these new applian-
ces which render the production Of sugar
from sorghum anc corn stalks more
profitable industry on our large southern
plantations than cotton, and on our
small northern Iarms yioiding q IiUl.o.
return that corn, wheat, grass or pota-
toes.
REVIVAL OF AN OLD INDUSTRY.
The old Mexican inhabitants of
Santa Fe, New Mexico will tell you
that from their grandfathers they in
herited the secret of extracting sugar
from cornstalks and that the corn
fields of their valley for generations
gone by have supplied those people
their bread, meat and sugar, to say
nothing of the whisky--a Yankee
notion" We find, too, that our
forefathers of the war of independence
knew something of the saccharine
value of cornstalks, from the extract
Of little written by Abigain Adams,
dated September "a, 1777, which is as
follows:
An instance may be seen in the pro-
gress which is made in grinding
cornstalks and boiling the liquor into
molasses. Scarcely town or parish
within forty miles of us but what has
several mills at work; and had the ex-
pertinent been made mouth sooner,
many thousand barrels would have
been made i'll the small town of Man
chester. 1t answers very well to dis
till, and may be boiled down to su-
gar. There are two mills fitting up in
this parish.
They have three rollers-one with
cogs and two smooth. The stalks are
stripped of the leaves and tops, so that
it is no robbery upon the cattle, and
the juice ground out. IT'S said four
barrels of juice will make one of mo-
lasses, but in this people differ widely.
They have a method of refining it SO
that it looks as well as the best i'm
ported molasses.
Had these beginnings in the way of
substitutes for foreign sugar been ac-
lively and perseveringly followed up
we can no longer doubt that some
thousands of millions of dollars
would have been saved to the
country which have been spent in i'm
portations ofsugarand molasses. Now,
this new industry opened to our South
ern planters, Northern farmers and
capitalists, offers such profits from a
crop of sorghum and cornstalks, and
from the extraction of their sugar,
that our home product of all grades,
from the coarsest browns to the finest
whites, will soon turn the balance of
trade on sugar, and likewise in rum
and molasses, in our favor.
A CHANCE FOR THOUSANDS.
The strongest argument in support of
the scheme of the annexation of the
island of st. Domingo was the plea that
1t would render us Independent of Cuba
In the important article of sugar. This
plea now falls to the ground. The new
machinery and processes employed in the
extraction and capitalization of the sugar
from the sap OF the sorghum and cornstalk
are simple and com paratively inexpen-
sive. Sorghum sugar, worth 10 cents, can
now be produced, ,all cost Included, ,at less
than four cents per pound. The machi-
merry and implements employed include