SUGAR AND SUGAR MAKING. TD 
India, and the adjacent regions of Southern Asia, might 
produce more sugar; but their people are very slow to 
change the direction of their industry, while those of 
Spanish America have little industry of any sort. There 
is more sugar land in the West Indies, but it is mainly 
wilderness, which can only be converted into cane fields. 
at heavy cost and by severe labor—of course, quite 
slowly. 
‘In view of these facts, inquiry has very properly 
been made for saccharine plants adapted to the temperate 
zone, and which may be profitably employed in the pro- 
duction of sugar. Until some plant of this sort is found 
and extensively cultivated, it is not probable that the 
price of sugar, as measured by that of wheat, becf, and 
other edibles, will be essentially reduced. With the 
prospect of an active demand and a high price for sugar 
through several years ahead, it seems but reasonable that 
the sugar-producing area should be enlargéd, if that be 
found practicable. 
“That there is no lackof plants from which sugar may 
be made, is well known. Indian corn, the rock maple, 
and some other trees, the beet-root, and sundry other 
esculents, contain and yield sugar, but generally at a cost 
above that at which it can be extracted from the cane. 
There is, therefore, a real and realized demand for a 
sugar-producing plant which may be grown in temperate 
latitudes, and which will yield nearly or quite as bounti- 
fully, in view of their relative cost, as the cane.” 
