America's Crop Heritage


mer of 1881, fifty-two of these varieties were grown experimen-
tally. However, from the ninty-three acres of cane worked up,
only 165 pounds of sugar could be obtained. Sorgo cultivation
was admittedly a failure and investments of private capital in the
sorghum sugar industry were wiped out.
 The Federal government, however, continued to make expen-
sive experiments with sorgos for some years. Eight hundred
varieties and subvarieties had been tested by 1890 for sugar
qualities, but the government still intended to continue the intro-
duction of others for test. Only eight or ten varieties had been
found suitable, and these only in restricted localities.
 Emphasis on Selection-Congress voted an appropriation of
$25,000 in 1899 to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to continue
experiments in producing sugar from sorghum and beets. Experi-
menters stressed the selection and analysis of sorghum varieties
for sugar content. Nine sorghum sugar laboratories were estab-
lished in Kansas, and similar experiments conducted in other
states. Certain materials in most sorghums prevented the crystalli-
zation of sugar in the juices. As varieties were sought with a high
percentage of sucrose, and free from the deleterious substances
which interfered with refining, more attention came to be given
to breeding and selection rather than to introduction.
 Sugar cane stocks were also being imported during the period
of experimentation with sorgos, though Le Duc and others favored
sorghum as a sugar source. Growers believed that fresh canes from
Java were necessary for successful sugar planting in the lower
Mississippi Valley. Introductions of sugar cane came from Japan,
Hawaii, and Brazil. Le Duc reported in 1880 that sugar cane
introductions still were being made, but he suggested that growers
turn to the sorghums to avoid the recurring deterioration of the
sugar cane stocks.
 BEETS
 The Department of Agriculture was slow to encourage sugar
production from the sugar beet, although it had been the basis
since Napoleonic times of a sugar industry in Europe where there
was an abundant supply of cheap labor. In 1838, the Committee
on Agriculture in the House of Representatives issued a report
on the culture of the sugar beet because the importation of sugar
had quadrupled from 1832 to 1836. The Committee insisted
". .that when the soil, climate, and other circumstances, will