A USEFUI. FAMILY. 1 65 



thus literally made of grass is both strong and durable. 

 When furnishings are required there is nothing superior 

 to the wicker work beds, chairs and divans woven with 

 Oriental deftness from the same material. Then for every- 

 day emergences there are bows, arrows, buckets, paper, 

 and even pens, to be obtained from this never failing 

 source. 



The stems of bamboos are slender, not usually exceeding 

 in diameter one per cent of their height. Their rate of 

 growth is phenomenal, sometimes not less than two feet in 

 a single day. At that rate it must surely be possible to hear 

 them growing! 



If the bamboo is the most useful of all grasses to unciv- 

 ilized man that grass which, next to wheat, is of the great- 

 est value to civilized man is Saccbarum, sugar cane. This 

 is a large grass eight to fifteen feet high, one to two inches 

 in diameter, which originally came from India and China 

 and is common in nearly all tropical and sub-tropical 

 regions. From it is derived at least one half of the world's 

 supply of sugar, and much the better half, for in quality 

 and taste cane sugar is superior to that made from the beet 

 and other sugar producing vegetables. The sweet juice 

 constitutes ninety per cent of the weight of the stalk, the 

 amount actually extracted being from sixty to eighty-seven 

 per cent. About fifteen per cent of the juice is sugar. 

 Twenty tons to the acre is considered a good crop of cane. 



The sugar cane was introduced by the Spaniards into 

 the West Indies in 1494, and has ever since been and still 

 is the most valuable product of the islands. It is no ex- 

 aggeration to say that the prosperity of the Antilles has 

 been dependent upon the cultivation of this one species of 

 grass. 



It is not pleasant to reflect upon the misery which for 

 nearly four hundred years followed in the track of the su- 

 gar planters. By the time plantations were established 



