16 SUGAR AND SUGAR PLANTS. 
revolution, in the progress of se tea, coffee, and sugar 
came into general use. 
~ Sugar was almost unknown to the Greeks and the Ro- 
mans. By our ancestors of the north of Europe it was oc- 
casionally used as an agreeable condiment only ; its place, 
both in ancient times and during the middle ages, being 
supplied in part by honey. So ignorant were the ancients 
of any system of manufacturing it, that they supposed it 
to exude naturally from canes, like gum. Even Pliny in 
his Natural History alludes to it but very briefly in his 
enumeration of the rare productions of the East, observing 
that a substance called ‘“‘saccharen” was obtained from 
certain reeds in India; that it was of a white color, was 
sweet like honey, crackled like salt between the teeth, and 
was found in lumps of the size of a hazel-nut. This could 
have been nothing else than the rock candy, or crystallized 
white sugar, of the kind yet made in Cochin China. The 
Greek physicians bought it occasionally from the Arabian 
merchants, and used it as a medicine. From India, where 
it was early cultivated, the sugar cane was carried by the 
Arabians to Mesopotamia, a country celebrated for its 
sugar at the period of the Crusades, whence it was suc- 
cessively introduced into Syria, Egypt, Sicily, and Spain. 
Sugar has become one of the most indispensable pro- 
ducts of modern industry, and any means by which its pro- 
duction may be facilitated, or increased, is now of im- 
portance to the whole human race. In our own country, 
the consumption of sugar is much greater in proportion 
to our population than anywhere else on the globe, and 
our interest in the supply of this product is still further 
enhanced by the consideration that it not only falls far 
short of the demand for it, but also that, prospectively, the 
disproportion between the supply through the old channels 
and the demand is likely to be much greater. 
