A NEW GIFT FROM AMERICA.
SOME information has recently reached England from the United States, which deserves more notice than the cursory paragraph usually devoted by newspapers to such things. It appears probable that America, which is so rapidly absorbing the wheat trade of the world, may, for a time at all events, absorb the sugar trade also. Mr. Victor Drummond, Secretary to her Majesty's Legation at Washington, has sent home some Reports by General Le Duc, Director of the United States Department of Agriculture ; by Mr. William McMurtrie, Chemist to the Department ; and by Mr. F. L. Stewart, of Marysville, Pennyslvania, a well-known expert in the cultiva- tion and manufacture of sugar, which in his (Mr. Drummond's) opinion show that sugar of excellent quality can be manufactured very cheaply from the green stalks of maize, the special cereal of the American continent, which grows there in almost every county south of Alaska in embarrassing luxuriance; and that even a larger quantity can be obtained from sorghum, the Indian or Chinese millet, which has now been naturalised in the Union for twenty-five years, grows as strongly as maize, and although demanding even a little more sun—clear sun is the special de- mand of maize, which, sun being granted, will ripen almost anywhere—is found over nearly as wide an area as maize itself. The sorghum yields more sugar than the maize, giving 10 lb. to the gallon of syrup, while each acre planted with the grass can be made to produce from 200 to 300 gallons of syrup. In other words, this hardy grass, which will grow anywhere in the Union, will yield 1,000 lb. of sugar per acre, equal in selling value at 3d. a pound to at least five times the price of the yield of wheat. Maize yields a fifth less, but even from maize an enthusiastic farmer of Maine declares that "the sugar produced on one acre yields him a profit equal to thirty acres of wheat,"—that is, of course, at present prices. Mr. Stewart, the expert, describes in his Report, published in ertenso in the " Commercial " Blue-book No. 1, of 1879, called, " Report by Mr. Drunimond on Sugar Production in the United States," the methods of manufacture, which are far simpler and easier than those applicable to cane and beetroot sugar ; and Mr. Drummond, after observing that the Indian-corn sugar, which he has himself tasted, is "very sweet and well crystal- lised," sums up his opinion in this paragraph :— "Mr. Stewart has made the subject of the chemistry of saccharine juices a speciality for some years, and intends publishing an account of his discovery of a process by which sugar, in much larger quanti- ties than has heretofore been supposed to exist in it, can now be made from the juice of the stalks of maize or Indian corn, taken at a period when the grain is only partially matured. His experiments seem to warrant the belief that the yield of sugar from this source may be made by a careful system of manufacture to equal, per acre of ground planted, nearly the average of sugar now produced from the sugar-cane in Louisiana, and that the American people could easily render themselves independent of foreign nations and the caprices of the foreign sugar trade, by growing and manufacturing their own sugar at comparatively small cost. Of equal importance is the statement, that on account of the similarity of the juice of sorghum to that of maize in most important particulars, the same process is applicable to both ; that by this means, any of the prominent varieties of sorghum now (mown to the country may be rapidly and uniformly crystallised, and an amount of sugar be produced from any of them
equal to the average product of either the sugar-cane in Louisiana or the sugar-beet in Europe. Those varieties of sorghum which yielded heretofore only a crude table syrup, especially the old Chinese sorghum, may now be considered as the moat valuable varieties. Mr. .
Stewart's experiments show that the regular Chinese cane of Western Pennsylvania yields 200 gallons of syrup per acre, that on good com- mon soil 800 gallons per acre is practically attainable, by the applica- tion of gypsum, phosphates, and other special manures, and good cultivation ; that 8 lb. of sugar from corn and 10 lb. from sorghum- cane may be made from a gallon of dense syrup, and there is scarcely a county in the Union in which one or both of these plants cannot be successfully grown. If the above is proven, then it is de- monstrable that if one acre in fifty of the area annually devoted to the growth of Indian corn in the United States be appropriated to the growth of either corn or sorghum for sugar, and properly worked up, the product would abundantly supply the present home demand."
We need not, we suppose, point out to sugar-growers, manu- facturers, or refiners, or indeed any one interested in the sugar trade, the very considerable importance of these statements, which are all made or endorsed by official authority. If they are as correct as their authors evidently believe them to be, the cultivation both of the sugar-cane, which is confined to peculiar soils, and of beet-root, which requires delicate care, may be very seriously menaced, the rougher plants, maize and sorghum, which will grow almost anywhere—though they prefer southerly to strictly northern climates—beating them completely in the race of production. America, India, China, the whole border of the Mediterranean, and in a less degree all Europe, can grow the new sources of sugar, and the superiority long enjoyed by tropical and semi-tropical countries in the production of the article is seriously threatened, to the great disturbance, though, of course, not to the extinction, of the existing cultivation.
We may add that a special variety of the sorghum, known as the " Minnesota early amber sugar-cane," produces a rough sugar of which the Government chemist gives the following analysis :-
Cane sugar (saccharose) 88.8934
Grape sugar (glucose) ... 5.6100 Water (by drying at 110 C.) 51250
It is a curious fact, which has greatly struck Mr. Stewart, that the earliest mention of maize in print, that published by Cap- tain John Smith, in 1629—Captain Smith was the explorer
rescued by the " Princess Pocahontas "—contains a singularly clear account of the sugar-producing properties of the plant, which is indigenous in North America:— "The greatest labour they take in planting their come. In April they begin to plant, bat their chiefe plantation is in May, and so they continue till the midst of June. What they plant in April they reape in August, for May in September, for June in October. Every stalke of their come commonly beareth two eares, some three, seldome any fonre, many but one, and some none. Every eare ordinarily hath betwixt 200 and 300 graines. The stalke, being greene, hath a sweet juice in it somewhat like a sugar-cane, which is the cause that when they gather their cane green they sucke the stalkes, for as we gather greene pease so do they their come, being greene, which excelleth their olde.—[From the "True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith—Account of 6th Voyage, A.D. 1606, 2d Booke," London ed., A.D. 1629."]
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