NORTH-WESTERN SUGAR GROWERS' CONVENTION--- THE NEW SUGAR CANE

[Springfield, IL, 1858. Broadside, 10-1/2" x 13-1/2". Printed in four columns. Lightly foxed, old folds, Very Good.

This evidently unrecorded broadside recounts the proceedings of a Convention. held at the State Capitol in Springfield, to determine the feasibility of a regional program to advance the cultivation of sorghum or Chinese sugar cane. Notice of the Convention was reported in the Sangamo Journal / Illinois State Journal for 30 December 1857: "It is confidently believed that the Chinese Sugar Cane is well 'adapted to our soil and climate,' and that it can be successfully and profitably cultivated and manufactured into molasses and sugar."
The Agricultural Committee submitted information from growers and processors in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The Mechanical Committee could not produce an acceptable proposal for a processing machine, and the Convention adjourned, with a recommendation that Illinois delegates gather more information for a future convention. Efforts to stimulate the growth of northern sugar cane continued through the succeeding decades.
As of January 2024 not located on OCLC or the online sites of AAS, NYPL, Newberry, Harvard, Yale, U MI. Not in Sabin, Eberstadt, Decker, Graff.