Committee on Sorghum Sugar

[The following narrative is taken from Frederick W. True’s Semi-centennial history of the National Academy of Sciences, A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863-1913, pp. 284-289. This activity appears to have been the Academy’s first self-initiated study, as well as to involve the first committee to include non-members.]

The varieties of sorghum which are available as sources of sugar have been cultivated for a long period in China and Africa. Seed was first imported into the United States from the former country by way of France, and from Natal about the year 1855. The sorghum plant is far more hardy than sugar-cane, and was successfully cultivated over a wide area, especially in the western and northwestern parts of the United States. The outbreak of the Civil War caused a scarcity of sugar-cane throughout the country, and the saccharine products of sorghum were greatly in demand to supply the deficiency. These products, however, did not take the form of sugar, but of syrup. In 1860, nearly 7,000,000 gallons of sorghum syrup were manufactured, and in 1870, three years after the close of the war, the production had risen to 16,000,000 gallons. It increased from year to year during the next decade, and was about at its maximum in 1880, when the output was more than 28,000,000 gallons.

Although beginning as early as 1863 some sorghum sugar was made in the United States every year, it was not until near the time when sorghum syrup production was at its height that the attention of the Government was turned toward the promotion of the manufacture of this kind of sugar. In 1878, before the agricultural bureau of the Government had developed into the Department of Agriculture, and while Dr. Peter Collier was the chemist of the bureau, experiments were commenced under his direction which were intended to test the possibility of producing sugar from sorghum on a large scale and at a low cost. The investigation was entered upon with great enthusiasm and became a matter of wide interest throughout the country. Farmers and manufacturers cooperated with the Government in promoting the undertaking and large amounts of capital were invested in machinery and appliances for the conversion of sorghum juices into sugar. The press of the country kept the subject prominently before the people and it was for some years a common topic of conversation.

The experiments of the Government were carried on for three or four years, but resulted unfavorably. The Commissioner of Agriculture remarked that “the business of manufacturing sugar from sorghum at the department failed in 1881, having furnished discouragement rather than information to those engaged in it.” The same year Dr. Collier, at the invitation of the Academy, read a paper at its November session in Philadelphia on “Facts regarding Sorghum, and some conclusions as to its value as a source of sugar.” Professor Silliman, who had introduced Dr. Collier, then presented the following resolution which was approved by the Council:

“Resolved, That the subject of sorghum sugar, the experimental results on which, obtained during the three or four years last past by Dr. Peter Collier, of the Agricultural Department, submitted in brief, by invitation, to the academy at its Philadelphia session in November, 1881, is, in the opinion of the academy, of sufficient importance to be referred to a committee of chemists, members of this academy, with the request that they give Dr. Collier’s results and methods a careful consideration, and report at their early convenience the conclusions to which they come.” [Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1881, p. 19. This paper will be found on pages 64 and 65 of the report of the committee of the Academy on sorghum.]

The President, William B. Rogers, appointed as the committee Benj. Silliman, Samuel W. Johnson, Charles F. Chandler and J. Lawrence Smith. Not long after the session closed, the attention of the Commissioner of Agriculture, George B. Loring, was called by the President to the fact that the Academy had the sorghum experiments under consideration, and Mr. Loring thereupon transmitted certain documents for the use of the committee, with the remark that “if this reference involves a scientific investigation of the sorghum question he will be greatly obliged for the report.” At the same time, the committee was enlarged by the appointment of Wm. H. Brewer, C. A. Goessman and Gideon E. Moore as additional members. The last two were not members of the Academy.

At the April session of the succeeding year, 1882, an abstract of the report of the committee was read before the Academy, and the first draft of the report itself was also submitted. The complete report was transmitted to the Commissioner of Agriculture in the following November. Mr. Loring refers to the document in his report for 1882 in the following terms:

“At the request of the chemist of the department, I submitted the sorghum analyses and work of his division to the National Academy of Sciences on the 30^th of January last for investigation by that body. A committee appointed for that purpose entered upon their work with great zeal and energy, and their report, which was laid before me, was, on July 21, withdrawn formally by the secretary of the academy ‘for such action as the academy may deem necessary.’ On the 15^th of November current, the president of the academy presented to me the final report of that institution, a long and elaborate document, containing a review of the history of the sorghum industry for twenty-five years, a statement of the scientific investigations made in this country and in Europe into the quality of sorghum and maize as sugar producing plants, a careful examination of the chemical work of the department, a large volume of testimony received from sugar manufacturers, and certain suggestions with regard to future investigations and the work of the department. The report is evidently the result of infinite care, and has been subjected to careful revision, and I trust it will be found a valuable text-book for those engaged in the sorghum sugar industry. As a review of the successes and failures which have attended this industry, it is invaluable. As a guide to those who are engaged in it, it contains all the important results that have thus far been obtained by the chemist in his laboratory and the manufacturer in his mill. This report, together with a most voluminous appendix, making an interesting mass of matter far too large to be inclosed in the annual volume of the department for this year, will be issued at an early day as a special publication.” [Rep. Comm. Agric., 1882, p. 680.]

Although it appears to have been the intention of the Department of Agriculture to publish the report, it was not issued as a departmental document. On July 6, 1882, the Senate adopted a resolution calling on the Commissioner to transmit it to Congress for the use of that body, and it was published as Senate Miscellaneous Document no. 51, 47^th Congress, 2d Session. [The resolution was as follows: Senate, July 6, 1882. “Mr. Windom submitted the following resolution; which was considered by unanimous consent and agreed to: Resolved, That the Commissioner of Agriculture be directed to furnish for the use of the Senate a copy of the report of the Committee of the National Academy of Sciences upon the subject of sorghum sugar,” Congressional Record, vol. 13, part 6, p. 5669, 47^th Congress, 1^st Session.] It did not leave the hands of the Commissioner until January 10, 1883, however, and was not published until June of that year. It was the most voluminous report prepared by any committee of the Academy and covered 152 printed pages. [Forty-seventh Congress, 2d Session, Sen. Misc. Doc. no. 51. National Academy of Sciences. Investigation of the Scientific and Economic relations of the Sorghum sugar Industry, being a report made in response to a request from the Hon. George B. Loring, U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences. November, 1882. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1882. 8o. Pp. 1-152.]

Though conservative in their attitude, the committee speak in favorable terms of the outlook of the sorghum sugar industry, and express their faith in its future development. “As a work of national importance,” they remark, “calculated directly to benefit widely separated sections of the country, it is one that has been wisely undertaken and encouraged by the Department of Agriculture, and is deserving of every aid that Congress may be willing to grant for its encouragement and prosecution.” (p. 24) Again:

“The spirit of scientific investigation which has led the Department of Agriculture through its chemical and agronomic researches to results of such importance towards developing a new industry of national value has been liberally fostered by the General Government, and to some extent also by certain of the States. The fruits of this policy are already beginning to show themselves in the decided success which has attended the production of sugar from sorghum on a commercial scale in the few cases in which the rules of good practice, evolved especially by the researches made at the laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, have been intelligently followed. Sufficiently full returns from the crop of 1882 have already come to hand to convince us that the Industry is probably destined to be a commercial success” (p. 53).

The expectations of the committee, though doubtless justified by the knowledge available at the time at which they were formed, were not destined to be fulfilled, owing to a combination of circumstances which could not be foreseen. Congress continued to appropriate money for sorghum investigations for a number of years and the Department of Agriculture carried on experiments with great industry and earnestness, but the scope of these activities gradually narrowed as the real nature of the problem began to be perceived, and finally in 1893, they were discontinued.

In the same year in which the committee of the Academy reported (1882) the actual manufacture of sugar at the Department of Agriculture was found unprofitable and was abandoned. Attention was then concentrated on increasing the sugar-content and other desirable qualities of the sorghum plant and on finding a process for the manufacture of sugar at a low cost. It was finally determined that the only ready methods of causing the sugar to crystallize in large quantities and of freeing it from the starch and gummy substances with which it was associated involved the use of large quantities of alcohol. The high tax on alcohol made its use prohibitive and the industry thus encountered an obstacle which it has never been able to surmount. Although for many years before and after the Government entered on its investigations a million or more pounds of sugar were manufactured annually in the United States from sorghum, the industry was always a precarious one, and quite as likely to entail a loss as to yield a profit. At the critical time in its history a number of circumstances besides the difficulty regarding the use of alcohol militated against its development. Among these the most important was that the price of sugar was unusually low, a condition brought about largely by the growth of the beet-sugar industry which proved remunerative and engrossed the attention of agriculturists in those very sections of the country in which it was expected that the cultivation of sorghum sugar would prove a benefit. In 1893 Congress discontinued appropriations for sorghum investigations, the Secretary of Agriculture having remarked in his report for that year:

Thus the activities of the Government terminated without producing the result which the committee of the Academy expected. The potentialities of sorghum as a source of sugar were demonstrated, however, and the time may yet come when new agricultural and commercial conditions and the progress of invention may bring it into actual use as one of the principal sugar-producing plants. In the meantime, the money and thought expended in investigations were not wasted, as sorghum has proved to be very valuable as a source of table syrups and as a fodder-plant for cattle. [See H. W. Wiley. The relation of chemistry to the progress of agriculture. Yearbook U. S. Dep. Agric. for 1899, pp. 242, 243.]