Smyrna times. [volume] (Smyrna, Del.) 1854-1987, 1883-11-07
Sorghum Sugar.

Unlike the short lived beet sugar en-
terprise at home, the Rio Grande sugar
plantation in Cape May county, New
Jersey, appears to be success. The
plantation is equipped with all the nee
essary machinery for sugar-making on
an extensive scale, and the product OF.
1000 acres of sorghum, grown by the
Rio Grande company this year, is now
being worked up and the yield is said
to be at the rate of Il 900 pounds per |
acre of high grade sugar, which sells
readily alongside the best specimens OF |
the Louisiana or West Indian planta-
tons. The enterprise has now, we are |
informed, passed beyond the domain of
experiment; and the coming year will
witness the planting of a largely in
creased acreage of sorghum cane in
Cape May county.
simultaneously with this practical
success on the part of the Rio Grande
company it is little perplexing to read
that Commissioner Loring, of the De-
partment of Agriculture, will report to
the next Congress that he has expert
mented very fully and carefully in the
culture of sorghum and has come to
the conclusion that its culture will not
pay; that the years trial of sugar
making under the auspices of his de-
partment shows yield not exceeding
100 pounds to the acre, and that, there
fore, he feels justified in pronouncing
against sorghum as plant from which
it is practicable to manufacture sugar
in paying quantities.
1t is strange how some people will
persist in doing what others have
clearly demonstrated to be practically
impossible.
The basis of success with the Rio
Grande company has been the applica-
ton of a system which insures the
crystaliZatiOn of the sorghum syrup
into sugar with Untailing certainty.
The lack of such a system has stood in
the way of the successful cultivation of
sorghum in thousands of Instances since
its introduction INTO this country,
which was about the year 1886. Here
and there, ever since that time, small
quantities of sugar have been obtained
from sorghum, but the failures were
incomparahly mere Lumc ruua ;hah the
successes. While one lot of syrup
might crystalize in Il way that left
nothing to be desired, dozen other
samples, taken perhaps from the same
field and treated in precisely the same
way would absolutely refuse to crys-
taliZe at all.
The sorghum cane was quite eXten.
sively grown on this Peninsula during
the few years following its introduction
but with such indifferent success that
its culture was gradually abandoned
it being found, as a rule, that corn was
a safer and more lucrative crop. The
peach crop, too, setting in about the
same time, soon outgrew all other agri
cultural enterprises, and the abandon
ment of sorghum may have been par
TALLY due to the unexampled prosperity
which attended the rapid development
of the culture of the peach and which
naturally led farmers to turn their at
: tention more particularly to the grow
ing of other fruits and of berries ant
finally to the changing of this PENN
Sula from an exclusively cereal pro
ducing region is something very mucl
like IL huge orchard and vegetable gar
den for the millions of dWellers in tn
cities of the Middle and New England
States.
As fodder crop the sorghum can
cannot compete with corn, but the Chi
nese minister and some members c
his legation, who recently visited tn
Rio Grande plantation, taught tn
company new wrinkle about tn
value of the seed of the cane. Fo
two thousand years sorghum has bee
grown extensively i'll China for tn
seed alone, which, as breadstul
forms an important article in the die
Of many millions Of people in thu
country. Analysis shows the seed t
be identical in composition with India
corn, and it is believed that it may |
found Il valuable addition to our ce
Gals.
The most astonishing matter in tn
connection is that the Chinese have fl
all the centuries lived in ignorance
~ the sugar producing qualities of so
ghum and have grown it for the see
exclusively so that while the visito
a. were imparting a valuable lesson the
= were receiving an equally valuable OF
NJ in exchange.-Erery Erening.