mittee of dairymen appointed at the late meeting of the Illinois
Dairymen's Association did not present themselves at the State Board
meeting to confer about holding a dairy exhibit either at the State Fair
or the Fat Stock Show, as instructed to do. No explanation of the
failure was made. The State Board, however, to leave nothing undone to
establish its desire to meet the dairymen half way or more, appointed a
committee consisting of Messrs. David, Chester, and Griffith, to confer
with the DeKalb committee, in Chicago, at some convenient time to be
agreed upon.

It was decided to hold the next Illinois State Fair at Chicago the week
beginning September 8th, and the Fat Stock Show at the Exposition
Building, Chicago, beginning November 11th.

SORGHUM AT WASHINGTON.

Prof. Wiley, of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, will soon
issue his report upon the sorghum business of 1883. Newspaper
correspondents have been permitted to make a digest of the report. He
pronounces erroneous the prevalent impression that every farmer may
become his own sugar-maker. Sorghum, unlike sugar beet, contains various
non-crystallizable sugars, the separation of which demands much skill
and scientific knowledge. Sorghum-sugar will have to be made in large
factories. The existing factories have shown that it can be made, but
how profitably or unprofitably can not be stated by Prof. Wiley, who
suggests that farmers near factories may, in effect, make their own
sugar by raising the cane and trading it at factories for sugar. Cane
giving sixty pounds of sugar per ton ought to bring the farmer
thirty-five pounds, the rest of the sugar and molasses going to the
manufacturer to pay expenses and yield profit. The profitableness of
making sugar from sorghum depends largely on utilizing all waste
products. The scums and sediments make manure hardly inferior to guano.
Bagasse, or crushed cane, can be turned into manure by being thrown into
hog-pens, as at Rio Grande, N.J., or it will make a fair quality of
printing paper. It is not economical to burn it. If the manufacture of
sorghum-sugar is proved to be profitable, it will result in supplying to
a large extent our demand for sugar, but as sorghum makes a great deal
more molasses in proportion to sugar than sugar-cane does, the Professor
concludes that when there is enough sugar there will be a great deal
more molasses than can be disposed of.

Prof. Wiley has made experimentally s