Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1859 — SUQAR CANE. [ARTICLE]

SUQAR CANE.

The Sorghum, or Chinese sujgar cane has become fixed as an article ol annual cultivation in this county. It comes to perfection in every part of this county; but the central parts are more particularly adapted to ils growth. Th same seed will grow and ripen earlier on sandy ridges, than on the muck and alluvial) of our rivers. Cane has been raised here for three years, and came originally from one kind of seed. List season, from some cause or other, two species were developed. The one was the ; same a heretofore, growing from nine to thirteen feet high and maturirg in about the same time that common field corn does; the ; : other grows, with the same cultivation, at : least two teet higher—u third larger round; but is two or three weeks later. Sorghum ought to be planted as early as the ground and season will admit in the spring; but wiil ripen if got in any time before the first of June. An acre planted on the first of May is worth an acre and a quarter planted in June, where both grow equally largj ai.d both get ripe, because the cane that ripens before the first of September, makes more and sweeter molasses than if it does not mature till Liter in the s ; is in If three or four of the lower joints of the sorghum are cut off a.nd the sap pres.-ed out and boiled down by itself, it will make sugar, preci.-ely in the same way sugar is made from the maple-trees. The higher joints will not granulate. The juices of the sorghum ought to be boiled and skimmed immediately on coming from the press. A little new milk, blood or eggs, stirred in before going to the kettle, will cause the scum to | rise much quicker and better, and the mulas- 1 i ses will be whiter and clearer, and free from the raw, j'reen taste that injures so much 1 of it. Il the sirup, when half boiled down allowed to cool and settle, the molasses is better by far, than if boiled right down without stopping. Imphee. —This is another kind of sor<’hum or sugarcane. It was raised in this county last year, and gave such abundant satisfaction that it will be extensively tried again this year. Its cultivation ;nd manufacture are precisely like the Chinese cane. It appears to be an earlier variety—the molasses is naturally lighter colored and of better flavor. It is thought to make sugar more readily than the sorghum.