8 The Sugar-Beet in America 



time it also became important in the Island of San Do- 

 mingo. By 1518 there were twenty-eight mills on this 

 island. It reached Mexico in 1520, Guadalupe in 1644, 

 and Martinique in 1650. The first sugar mill in Cuba was 

 built in 1547. Sugar-making was brought to Louisiana 

 in 1751 by the Jesuit fathers, but after about twenty- 

 five years' trial it was abandoned, not to be tried again 

 till 1791. Thus with the introduction of sugar into the 

 diet of the people of Europe, the colonies of the European 

 countries furnished an abundant supply. At that time 

 the consumption was very low compared with that of 

 the present. 



When sugar first became an article of commerce, the 

 high price prohibited its general use. As late as 1482 

 it sold for as much as $275 a hundred pounds on the 

 London market, although it had been considerably cheaper 

 a century before. By the close of the fifteenth century 

 the price had fallen to $53 a hundred pounds in London. 

 Competition became very keen among the English, 

 Dutch, French, and Portuguese traders for the sugar trade 

 of Europe in the early part of the eighteenth century. 

 Each country was anxious to have its colonies furnish the 

 chief supply of sugar, most of which was at that time pro- 

 duced by slave labor. 



EARLY HISTORY OF BEETS 



The first use of beets as a cultivated crop is not known. 

 Theophrastus, in the third century B.C., describes two 

 varieties of beets grown in Greece — the deep red and the 

 white. The barbarians who conquered Rome carried 



