The importance of this subject to the United States, where the consumption of sugar is increasing out of ratio to the production of sugar-bearing plants, and where agricultural independence should be realized, as we have already attained and maintained political independence, and almost independence in manufacturing industries, has called out Mr. Lewis S. Ware, a member of the American Chemical Society, etc., in a pamphlet of over 60 pages, entitled a "_Study of the Various Sources of Sugar_." From this publication it appears that the main source of sugar supply must still be _sucrose_, cane sugar, even in spite of the best efforts of the general government and of the State agricultural organizations to introduce sugar-bearing plants that will thrive in the temperate and colder latitudes of this country. With the single exception of the sugar beet, he seems to disparage all attempts to produce practical sugar from hardy plants, or those that will mature in the region of frosts in winter. Even sorghum, that has for twenty years held a place in the hopes of the northern farmer, has declined so that the alleged production of half a million pounds in 1866 had became barely a twelfth of a million pounds in 1877. In his remarks on the synopsis of one hundred and eleven experiments, made at Washington, he says: "As may be noticed, thirty-five of them (111) would yield zero. If we take the average of the hundred and eleven experiments, we find as a yield 4.5 per cent., which result cannot possibly be practically accepted. In other words, our government, notwithstanding the favorable conditions under which they were made, prove that the sorghum utilization is fallacy in every sense of the word." ... "If sorghum is to be grown for its sirup, or for fodder, it will evidently render excellent service." It seems that less than four per cent. of crystallizable sugar in the sorghum juice will not pay the cost of making sugar from it, as it will not crystallize in a reasonable time, on account of the glucose in the juice, which, with the other impurities, will prevent the ready crystallization of four or five times their own weight of sucrose. From the early history of sorghum, it appears that it was known as _sorgo_ in the sixteenth century, while twenty or thirty varieties were known under different names in Egypt, Arabia, and Africa. Some of the names are, Chinese sugar cane, (sorgo), India cane, emphee or Coffers' bread, paindes anges, etc. The later history of it shows that in 1850, Count Montigny sent the first samples from China to Europe. It had been used in the former country for thousands of years for the manufacture of red dye. The seeds were afterward sold in France for a _franc_ each.