The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1880-03-19
A GREAT PROBLEM SOLVED.
SUGAR FROM SORGHUM AND INDIAN
CORN-ANAZIEG RESULTS OF THE
NEW PROCESSES


A writer. who subscribes himself
w - and dates his letter Washington,
March 6, says in the New York Herald:
From visit to the agricultural build
ing. this day the writer returned with
the conviction that surely within the
next ten years, and probably within the
next five years, the production of sugar
within the limits of the United States
will supply all the demands of our 50, 000,-
600 of people. and that in this produc-
tion not only will there be gain annu-
ally to the wealth OF the country equal
to 5000 00O. 600. but even our Northern
border States will become self-support-
ing. In other words, from recent dis
coyeries made and new processes applied
in the production of sugar from the raw
material, our sugar producing belt, from
the superior profits OF the culture. viii
within few years embrace all our ter
ritory in which sorghum or Indian corn
will come to maturity.
Colonel Robert c. Murphy, formerly
United States consul general in China.
but now engaged here in the agricultural
department called the writer's atten-
tion to this important subject first in a
( reference to the facts presented in the
Interesting agricultural report for 1877
of Commissioner LIE Due, and next in an
introduction to Professor Collyer. the
chemist of the department, the general
results Of whose experiments in the pro-
ductiOn and crystaliiZatiOn of sugar may
be ranked in Importance with the inYen-
tiOn of the cotton gin.
1t appears from the commissioner re-
port that the several attempts to make
sugar from beetS in this country having
been abandoned as profitless, and all
the attempts of twenty years to make a
merchantable sugar from sorghum hav-
iEg failed down to the new process of
1871 il had become q settled opinion
that only from the tropical cane and the
sugar maple tree could sugar be profita-
bly, made i'll the United States. But
the maple sugar is an inferior article
Our product, some twenty-elght million
pounds in 1860, is but a small item in
the general consumption and the limit
ed belts of maple groves along our
Northern border by the axe and by fire
are fast disappearing. The sugar pro
ductiOn from the tropical ,cane III this
country is confined to q narrow belt
bordering on the gulf of Mexico The
total production of this strip last year
was about $4,000, GOO pounds, while our
importations from abroad were 1,741,-
Gj0, 900 pounds of sugar, besides molaS-
seS, meladO and other forms of SucrOSe,
being about 800, 10000 pounds increase
over the imports OF the preceding year.
1t is estimated that the annual con-
sumption Of sugar iii the United States
does not exceed forty pounds per capita,
while in England the consumption is
sixty pounds per person. It may be
: safely assumed, therefore. that with an
abundant supply OF cheap, pure and
h,l
sumption would soon increase to sixty,
and perhaps eighty, pounds per capita.
At sixty pounds, the English average
(the French much higher. our fifty
millions of people would consume three
thousand million pounds of sugar, which
at seven cents per pound would be equal
to $4,000 600. But the Crystal Lake
sorghum sugars Of Weidncr 4 Co.. OF
Chicago, sold last year at ten cents per
pound, and at this figure our farmers
have now in sorghum and Indian corn
the canes from which they may add an
nually fully $500 OOO, 600 TO the wealth
of the country.
Two years ago this great desideratum
was held to be so far beyond our reach
rs TO be utterly UnattaiuabIe. Now.
with the improved and cheap machinery
and chemical processes employed, the
profitable production of sugar from sorg-
hum-aud Il superior mercantile sugar.
tCO-is placed within the reach Of every
farmer on whose lands sorghum or In
dian corn VIII grow. Some twenty
three years ago the attention OF the far
mers of the country, North and South.
began TO be actively drawn to the growth
of sorghum, and several yaTieties-Afr fri
can, European and Central American
were widely distributed and cultivated.
During the war tor the Union 50 pener-
al had the cultivation Of this cane be-
I come throughout the South that from
Virginia to Texas The people Of the
Confederate States for their ''sweeten-
! ing were reduced almost wholly to sOr-
ghum syrup or molasses, All attempts to
. cTystaliZe it having proved futile hence,
since the war, the general decline in the
sorghum culture North and South until
the last year, from which we may date
the rising or big boom" for sorghum.
which viii push forward our home pro
! ductiOn Of sugar until il is numbered
among our exports to England.
Without troubling you with the tables
Of figures, the results Of the numerous
{ chemical experiments made at the agri-
3 cultural department in the crystalliZi-
I tiOn Of the juices respectively of the
Louisiana ribbon sugar cane. half
! dozen varieties of sorghum, and several
kinds of Indian field corn, il is sufficient
here to say that from these experiments
/ the general results include the following 4:
From the juice of the Louisiana rib
bon sugar cane (the choicest variety
I the highest percentage obtained WAS