1830.] The Sugar Cane. 87 



Arabia-Felix its culture passed into Nubia, Egypt, and Ethiopia ; 

 thence to Sicily, the Canaries, and St. Domingo. It spread so rapidly 

 in the latter island, and sugar quickly became an article of such im- 

 portance, that we are told the cost of the palaces of Madrid and Toledo, 

 erected in the reign of Charles the Fifth, was defrayed by the proceeds 

 of the port duties on the sugar imported from Hispaniola. 



Once introduced, its culture was rapidly extended in the western 

 world ; but our limits will not admit of our entering upon the discus- 

 sion whether it was or was not indigenous to the West Indies. One 

 rather curious fact seems to militate against the former assumption, 

 namely, that although it flourishes in the West Indies, its organs of fruc- 

 tification appear to be without the power of fecundity. " A whitish 

 dust, or rather seed, is sometimes produced from the flowers ; yet this 

 being sown, has never been known to vegetate ; while in the East, 

 canes may be raised from seed." (p. 16.) 



The Venetians' seem to have been the earliest refiners of sugar in 

 Europe. " At first they imitated the Chinese, and sold the sugar which 

 they purified in the shape of candy ; clearing and refining the coarse 

 sugar of Egypt three or four times over. They afterwards adopted the 

 use of cones, and sold refined sugar in the loaf." 



Dr. Dutrone, in his Histoire de la Canne, " states the period of the 

 sugar plant's arrival at its full maturity, to be from twelve to twenty 

 months ; but he was unacquainted with the Otaheitan variety, which 

 was introduced into the West Indies about the end of the last and be- 

 ginning of the present centuries. This is much larger and finer than 

 the Brazil cane, and comes to maturity in about ten months, in the ele- 

 vated parts of the older settled West India Islands j but in vales, and 

 in the low alluvial soils of the colonies, where the land has not been 

 much cropped, the plant is oftener from twelve to sixteen months, and 

 even longer, in becoming full ripe" (p. 17)- The cane contains three 

 sorts of juice, one aqueous, another saccharine, and the third mucous. 

 The relative proportions of these, and the quality of the two last, depend 

 upon a great number of particular circumstances, a knowledge of which 

 is of the greatest importance in regulating the judicious care required 

 for the cultivation of this plant." 



Accurate and minutely discriptive drawings are given of the cane. 

 " The roots are very slender and almost cylindrical ; they are never 

 more than a foot in length ; a few short fibres appear at their extre- 

 mities." The number of joints of the stalk or cane, vary from forty to sixty, 

 sometimes even eighty in the Brazilian cane ; bnt there are much fewer 

 in that from Otaheite, its joints being much further apart, some of these 

 bein^ eight or nine inches long, while the finer specimens of those of 

 Brazil, are from two or three inches in length. There is on every joint 

 a bud, which encloses the germ of a new cane." 



" It would perhaps be tedious minutely to follow the plant through all the 

 different shades of its developement and growth. Its juice is, of course, variously 

 modified in all its different stages : in its first formation it has all the character- 

 istics of that of unripe mucous fruits ; after awhile it very much resembles both 

 in taste and smell the juice of sweet apples; by degrees it loses this, and takes 

 the smell and taste peculiar to the cane. 



fl The first joint requires four or five months for its entire growth, and, during 

 this time, fifteen or twenty joints spring from it in succession, and the same 

 progression continues as by degrees each joint arrives at the period of its growth, 

 which is ascertained hy the decay of its leaf. * * * The last joint, which is 



