CANE SUGAR. 17 
Sugar plays an important part in the economy of nature, 
animal and vegetable; and although our supply of it has 
been mainly derived from the tropical sugar cane (Saccha- 
rum officinale), the natural sources of it are as numerous 
and as widely distributed over the earth’s surface as the 
bread plants; no region being found destitute of some 
species of sugar plants, or uncongenial to them, in which 
any of the cereals can be successfully grown. Sir John 
Richardson found the ash-leaved maple, or box-elder, at 
the 54th parallel, affording most of the sugar made in 
Rupert’s Land, which may be regarded as the extreme 
northern limit to the successful growth of wheat and bar- 
ley in the valley of the Saskatchewan. In lower latitudes, 
commencing at the parallel of 50°, the maples, all sugar- 
producing trees, and some varieties of sorghum and sugar 
beet lately introduced, are found coincident in range with 
the maize and the less hardy grains, until, at last, within 
the rice-belt of the South we encounter the Indian cane, 
and the sugar palms. 
Cane sugar is also contained in a great many other 
plants from which it has not been extracted, as yet, in suffi- 
cient quantity to render its manufacture profitable ; among 
these may be mentioned various grasses, Indian-corn before 
it has ripened its grain, bulbous roots, such as the turnip, 
parsnep, and carrot, some fruits, as the pumpkin, melon, 
banana, etc., the fruit of the European chestnut, the nec- 
tary of the flower of Rhododendron ponticum, and, at cer- 
tain periods, in the sap of some trees, such as the walnut- 
tree of the Caucasus, the American white walnut, hickory, 
birch, ete. The sugar obtained from these sources is 
identical in composition and sensible properties with that 
contained in the juice of the tropical cane, and it is the 
only kind of sugar applicable to ordinary use. 
Other saccharine substances or sugars of a different and 
3 9x 
