CANE-SUGAR IN ENGLAND 



guese to the. mainland mid inland* of t hn west coast of Africa. 



. 



. . : 



Africa. 



8ACCHARUM 



OrPICINARUM 



Varieties) 

 From Made, 



ently WM taken to Brazil, but at a very early date, fur Mgtthn apeak* 

 Ol inning u there in 1519 (Purchtu. I.e. 34). 



Domingo and Barbados. ( >i tl..- UM manti ned ialand. Utf<>n n^i Barbados, 

 1657, Met *eq.) will b found to give a detailed account. He describes all the 

 m>t. u..rthy fruits of the inland. but of sugar-cano observes, " There is one brought 

 t III-IH i tY.'in as a Btranger, from beyond tin- Inn-. win h ii.m ,1 property beyond 

 tin-in all, ami that IB sugar-cane." He Juiull in tin- mlund 1047. and found 

 sugar-cane cultivation l.ut little underMt<|. tl, ,u-l, tin- plmi liad been r 

 ilui nl fn>m Brazil and an " Ingtmio " fur nmiuii.icturing the sugar had been sst 

 up. When he left thr i-l. in.l in 1050 the manufacture had been greatly impt 

 ami they hod discovered the period necessary fur the full maturity <>f the canes, 

 namely fifteen nmnths. They had also learned to manufacture lump Mugar." 

 " hut not BO excellent as they make in Brazil." Toward* the clone 

 century the French colonists of St. Domingo carried the cane to Louisiana. 

 These hriet' relVi enres to the West livlit'8 may null bfl i.pnu"ii thut 



it is there an exotic, and it may nut he far from tin- truth to u<l,l Unit it WM 

 the necessity for lahour in supir plant nm that gave origin to the slave tru!' 

 .Inliii I.> I-, who began his ,-\| I, .rat i,.n- "i Ainca ami Egypt about i 

 describee the sugar of Morocco and of Epypt, which appears even then to hn\e 

 been made from sugar-cane. Similarly Richard Jobaon describes the eugar- 

 canes of Sierra Leone and Gambia iti L6SO. r'-.rstvr (/'/. Etc., 1780, 77) speaks 

 of sugar-cane as grown in Polynesia for the children : in Taint an it is known *w Polynesia. 

 " To. ' It is recorded that the Otaheite cane was introduced into Trinidad 

 and Martinique in 1782. The date when sugar (from sugar-cane) first 



hod England has not been definitely ascertained. We read of its being England. 

 carried from St. Lucas in Spain to Bristol in 1520. In 1503 two ships ar- 

 rived at Camperre laden with Canary Island sugar, and a century and a half 

 later the supply from the West Indies and Brazil might be said to have been 

 fully established and become almost a necessity on every breakfast table in 

 Europe. At the present day sugar-cane is grown throughout the tropics and 

 sub-tropics, and even into the warm temperate tracts, especially in the West 

 Indies, Mauritius, British Guiana, etc., and at Malaga on the Mediterranean coast 

 of Spain. It requires a hot, moist atmosphere alternating with periods of dry 

 weather. It rarely flowers and fruits, so that cultivation is almost exclusively 

 by cuttings. These are called " plants," and usually consist of two or three upper 

 joints of the cane, the severance being by a clean cut immediately below a joint. 



Hughes (Nat. Hist. Barbados, 1750, 244-52. t. 23, f. i.) alludes to the flowering 

 of the canes in Barbados, and gives full particulars of the cultivation and methods 

 of manufacture pursued. But with regard to the fruiting and the production of 

 fertile seed, there is no definite record of this fact having been utilised for a 

 century later. Rumphius says, "It never produces flowers or fruiu unless it 

 has remained several years in a stony place." Roxburgh remarks, " Where wild 

 I do not know : I have never seen the seed." But in the West Indies, about 

 it was recorded that seedling canes had been observed to spring up around the 

 stems (or stools) of canes that had " arrowed " or flowered, from which cir- 

 cumstance it was believed and oft reiterated, that the sugar-cane actually <liil 

 produce fertile seeds sparingly, though more copiously under certain climatic 

 and soil conditions. [Cf. Joret, Lea. PI. dans L'Antiq., etc., 1904, ii., 200-9.] 



Varieties and Races of Sugar-cane. The diversity met with would D.E.P., 

 appear to have been brought about primarily by selection of sports and 



CulUratioo. 



; . ...;. 



:: - ! 



il '* 



variations as manifested in adaptation to environment ; through the v ar ietie 



study of yield of sugar to the acre ; the observation of freedom from an d Races. 



disease, etc., as also by the direct cross-breeding of the stocks thus pro- 



cured and matured. Leather defines a good cane as one which will yield 



70 per cent, of juice in the mill, afford 15 per cent, or more of cane-sugar, 



and possess not more than 17 per cent, of glucose. In the Dictionary the 



effort was made to divide the canes met with in India into two great 



sections : (a) Introduced Canes, and (6) Indian Canes. Without going 



into needless details regarding the various foreign canes known to be culti- 



vated in India, the following particulars may be furnished : 



1. Mauritius Cane. This appears to have been introduced into India from Mauritius. 



933 



