Development of the Beet-Sugar Industry 7 



sold by apotliecaries. In ancient times, honey was the 

 chief source of sweet. This was supplemented by sweet 

 fruits and sirups, but no refined sugar was extracted 

 from any source to be used as ordinary food. 



It is not certain whether the first sugar was obtained 

 from sugar-cane or from the bamboo, which belongs to 

 the same family. Early Greek and Roman writers men- 

 tion it as a rare product. Theophrastus, in the third 

 century B.C., refers to it as honey which comes from bam- 

 boos, and Pliny tells of sugar in Arabia and India. Very 

 little sugar-cane was found in Bengal before the fifth 

 century a.d., but about this time it was introduced into 

 the Tigris Valley and soon after into the Euphrates Val- 

 ley. In 627 A.D. it was found in Persia and carried west- 

 ward. About the middle of the eighth century the Moors 

 carried it to Spain, this being its first introduction into 

 Europe. It is kno^^-n to have been raised in China at 

 an early date and has been grown there continuously ever 

 since. 



By the tenth century, suflBcient sugar was produced 

 in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to attract 

 traders, and it was sometimes used as food in special feasts. 

 It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 however, when Queen Elizabeth of England introduced 

 it into her household, that sugar could be considered as 

 part of the diet. 



Sugar-cane went from Spain to Sicily and Cyprus in 

 the thirteenth century. The King of Portugal in the 

 fifteenth century sent cuttings from Sicily to Madeira 

 and the Canary Islands, from where it went to Brazil 

 during the early part of the next century. About the same 



