In our earliest days of pioneer cooking and baking, the “big four” for forms of “sweet harvests,” which have provided sugar derivatives dating back to the days of the 13 colonies, are honey, maple syrup, molasses and sorghum.

Our white grain sugar, of course, comes from sugar cane fields.

This season, the nearest neighboring fields across the ditch bordering my parents’ house at the farm are filled with sturdy stalks of sorghum.

A Tribune column I wrote and published about this same time of year in August 2019 detailed an account from our farm friend neighbor Steve Scamerhorn, now 87, explaining how he now witnesses more “low-flying field airplanes” scattering seeds in fields to sow sorghum, which establishes roots to preserve precious topsoil for the next planting.

The sorghum fields

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