5i6 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



canes in India and Arabia Felix and it is as hard as salt and is brittle under the teeth. 

 Pliny adds to this description by saying it comes in fragments as large as a filbert and is 

 used only in medicine. Paulus Aegineta quotes Archigenes as saying, " The Indian salt 

 is like common salt in color and consistence but resembles honey in taste." Sugar is 

 mentioned, however, in the Institutes of Menu,^ and the Soma Veda.^ 



The Venetians' imported sugar cane from India by the Red Sea, prior to 1148, and 

 it is supposed to have been introduced into the islands of Sicily, Crete, Rhodes and Cypress 

 by the' Saracens,^ as an abundance of sugar was made in those islands previous to the 

 discovery of the West Indies. Cane was cultivated afterwards in Spain, in Valentia, 

 Granada and Murcia by the Moors, and sugar is still made in these provinces.' Other 

 authorities believe that, in the ninth century, the Arabians obtained sugar from the sugar 

 cane which at that time was cultivated in Susiana. Sugar was brought from Alexandria 

 to Venice in the year 996. In 1087, 10,000 pounds of sugar are said to have been used 

 at the wedding of the Caliph Mostadi Bemvillah. In 1420, Don Henri transported sugar 

 cane from Sicily to Madeira, whence it was carried to the Canary Isles in 1503.* Thence 

 it was introduced into Brazil in the beginning of the sixteenth century.' Coliunbus 

 carried sugar canes from Spain to the West Indies before 1494, for at this time he says 

 " the small quantity that we have planted has succeeded very well.* Sugar cane was 

 carried to Santo Domingo about 1520.' In 1610, the Dutch began to make sugar in the 

 Island of St. Thomas,'" and, from the cane introduced in 1660, sugar was made in Jamaica 

 in 1664." Sugarcane reached Guadeloupe " about 1644 and Martinique " about 1650. 

 It was carried to Bourbon at the formation of the colony.'^ In 1646, the Barbados began 

 to export sugar. Plants appear to have been carried to Cuba by Velasquez about 15 18 

 and to Mexico by Cortez "about 1524, and, before 1530, we find mention of sugar mills 

 on the estates of Cortez.'* The plant seems to have been cultivated on the banks of the 

 Mississippi for the first time about 1751, and the first sugar mill was erected in 1758. In 

 1770, sugar had become one of the staple products of the colony about New Orleans. 

 The first variety cultivated was the Creole. The Ribbon cane, originally from Java, 



' Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 267. 1879. 



' Ibid. 



Loudon, J. C. Enc. Pis. 74. 1855. 



*Ibid. 



Ibid. 



De Candolle. A. Geog. Bot. 2:837. 1855. 



' Ibid. 



Columbus Sel. Letters 2nd Voy. 1494. Hakl. Soc. Ed. 78. 1847. 



De Candolle, A. Geog. Bot. 2:837. 1855. 

 ' I^udon, J. C. Enc. Pis. 74. 1855. 

 " Lunan, J. Hort. Jam. 2:20$. 1814. 

 " De Candolle, A. Geog. Bot. 2:837. 1855. 

 Ibid. 

 Ibid. 



Prescott, W. H. CoKq. Mex. 3:332. 1843. 

 " Ibid. 



