74 - THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
proportion of people able to purchase and consume sugar 
and other luxuries to the extent of their desires, has hke- 
wise increased. It is further true that the general manu- 
facture and use of preserved fruits, &c., is rapidly increas- 
ing. But the successive failures of the grape for several 
years past has led to the diversion of the beet crop of 
France, which is very large and important, from the 
production of sugar to that of brandy—the French 
brandies, formerly made of the juice of the grape, bear- 
ing a reputation and a price throughout the world which 
render this conversion highly profitable. Hence France, 
which, from Napoleon’s coronation to Louis Phillippe’s 
dethronement, had been steadily advancing toward the 
point of producing her own sugar, has recently been fall- 
ing rapidly back to a position of dependence for her 
supply on the tropical, cane-growing Indies. It is under- 
stood that the production of sugar in the British West 
Indies has fallen off since emancipation; the lberated 
negroes finding employment more to their taste than the 
severe labor of the cane-field and sugar-mill; though in 
British Guiana the production of sugar has recently been, 
and is still, rapidly increasing. California and Australia 
have had some part in producing the general result, those 
countries producing little or no sugar while consuming 
largely, and at the same time increasing the world’s bul- 
lion, and thereby enhancing the prices of nearly every- 
thing but gold. 
“Tt is clear that the annual production of sugar must 
be increased; but where, and how? The severe cold 
of last winter destroyed a great deal of cane, and practi- 
cally diminished the area of tropical cane-growing soul. 
