Peter Collier was
chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, much attention was given
to the study of sorghum juices from canes cultivated in the gardens of
the department at Washington. Dr. Collier became an enthusiastic
believer in the future greatness of sorghum as a sugar producing plant,
and the extensive series of analyses published by him attracted much
attention.
As a result large sugar factories were erected and provided with costly
appliances. Hon. John Bennyworth erected one of these at Larned, in
Kansas. S.A. Liebold & Co. subsequently erected one at Great Bend.
Sterling and Hutchinson followed with factories which made considerable
amounts of merchantable sugar at no profit.
The factory at Sterling was erected by R.M. Sandy & Co., of New Orleans,
and while the sirup produced paid the expenses of the factory, not a
crystal of sugar was made. The factory then, in 1883, changed hands, and
passed under the superintendency of Prof. M.A. Scovell, then of
Champaign, Illinois, who, with Prof. Webber, had worked out, in the
laboratories of the Illinois Industrial University, a practical method
for obtaining sugar from sorghum in quantities which at prices then
prevalent would pay a profit on the business. But prices declined, and
after making sugar for two years in succession, the Sterling factory
succumbed.
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