516 



FARMERS' RE GISTER 



[No. 9 



300 B. C, of "India stone, sweeter thrin figs and 

 honey." The Ophrastus, in a fragment preserved 

 by Photius, describes sugar as "a iioney contained 

 in reeds." Eratosthenes, also ciied l)y Strabo, 

 and alter him, Terentius Varro, are supposed to 

 have meant sugar-canes by '-rools oi' larixe reeds 

 growing in India, sweet to the laste, boih when 

 raw and when boiled, and affording, by pressure, 

 ajuice incomparably sweeter than iioney." 



Mear tlie commencement oC ihe CInislian era, 

 sugar was first mentioned under an apjiropiiate 

 name and Ibrm. '-In India and Arabia Felix," 

 writes Dioscorides, '-a kind of concreie honey is 

 called saccharon. It is found in reeds, and resem- 

 bles salt in solidity, and in iriableness between the 

 teeth.' Afier this, so learned a man as Seneca 

 fell back into fable on this subject. His account 

 is this: ''It is said that in India, honey is found 

 on the leaves of reeds, either despnsited there by 

 the dews of heaven, or generated in the sweet 

 juice and fiitness ofihereed itself." Pliny, whose 

 special study led iiim to look more carefully into 

 vhe matter, gives all that the ancients knew about 

 it, and a Jittle more. "Arabia," he observes, 

 "produces saccharum, but not so good as India. It 

 is a honey, collected on reeds, like the gums. It 

 is white, crumbles in the teeth, and when largest 

 is of the size of a hazel-nut. It is used in medi- 

 cine only." Afterwards Archigenes mentioned 

 it, as "India salt, resembling common salt in color 

 and consistency, but, in taste and flavor, Iioney." 

 Galen calls it sacchar, and says it was "a pro- 

 duction of India and Arabia the Blest." The 

 author of the "Periplus of the Erythean Sea" in- 

 cludes it, under the name of sacchari, in a list of 

 articles, constituting ihe commerce between hith- 

 er India, and the ports of thai sea. 



If the assertion, that sugar was used in anti- 

 quity as a medicament only, needed confirmation, 

 we might find it in the fact, that the subject is not 

 mentioned except by physicans and men of uni- 

 versal learning, nor with tolerable precision by the 

 former. None of them allude lo any arlificial 

 process in the preparation of it. ^lian, about the 

 middle of the second century, is the first who 

 mentions the use of mechanical art in the extrac- 

 tion o( the juice of the cane, and he is likewise 

 the first who attempts to fix the seat of its culture. 

 He tells us, that sugar is "honey pressed Irons 

 reed^, which are cultivated by the Prasii,a people 

 dwelling near the mouth of the Ganges." 



The .Jewish histories make no mention of su- 

 gar. The only sweet condiment, used by tf.e He- 

 brews, was hone3^ But it may have been in 

 part "honey made by men;" for the Rabbins un- 

 derstand thereby not only the honey of bees, but 

 also sirups, made from the fruit of the palm-tree. 



During several centuries succeeding the Augus- 

 tan age, no extension of ihe knowledge or use of su- 

 gar appears to have taken pla«e. It is occasionally 

 spoken of, but to the same effect as by the Greek 

 physicans of that age. So late as the 7ih century 

 Paul of /Egma ca'ls it "India salt," and borrows 

 ihe d^scriplion of Archigenes. 



At this lime a new power appeared on the the- 

 atre of nations. The Saracens conquered and oc- 

 cupier! western Asia, northern Africa, and south- 

 ern Europe. Their empire was scarcely inferior 

 to that of Rome, in the period of her greatest 

 prosperity and rapacity. They pushed their con- 

 quests to the Garonne and the Rhone, to Amalfi, 



and the islands of the Levant and the j^gean sea. 



To these ingenious barbarians the world is in- 

 debted for the moiiern manufacture and commerce 

 of sugar. It is not known at what time they 

 themselves became acquainted with it. Some 

 authors have asserted, that it was not until the 

 thirleenlh cenlury, and that (he sugar cane and 

 the art of extracting and elaborating the juice, 

 were conferred upon the Eurojieans by the crusa- 

 ders, or by themei'chant adventurers, who penetra- 

 ted the Indies afier the return of Marco Polo. 

 Each of these asseriions has been vaguely re- 

 ceivedj but a litile attention will satisfy every in- 

 quirer, th.'it neither of thent is true. 



We have seen, that several of the ancicn'ls, 

 best acquainted with the subject, couple Arabia 

 Felix with India as a source of saccharum. Ara- 

 bian writers of the iiint^h and tenth centuries speak 

 of sugar as common in their times. In the year 

 906, the sugar-cane was cultivated, and sugar 

 "manufactured, at Ormuz in Caramntiia, a province 

 of the eastern Caliphate, An Arabian author of 

 the western Caliphate, who composed a treatise 

 on agriculture about the year 1140, and who 

 quotes another v/riterof his nation of the year 1073, 

 gives full and precise directions for raising canes 

 and rnanuliicluring sugar. From all which, Loudon 

 concludes, that sugar has been cultivated in Spain 

 upwards of seven hundred .years, and probably as 

 as much as one thousand years. Salmasius 

 declares, in 16G9, that the Arabs had made our 

 modern sugar more than eight hundred years. 



One of the Christian historians o( the Crusades, in 

 the year 1100, stales tlial ihe soldiers of the cross 

 found in Syria cerlain reeds, called canamdes, of 

 which it was reported that "a kind of wild honey 

 was made-" Anoiher, in 1108, says: "The cru- 

 saders Ibund honey reeds, in great (]uanli(y, in the 

 meadows of Tripoli, in Syria, which reeds were 

 called sucra. These ihey sucked, and were much 

 pleased with the taste tiiereofj and could scarcely 

 be satisfied with it. This plant i^ cultivated with 

 great labor ol the husbandmen every year. At 

 the time of the harvest they bruise it,, when ripe, 

 in mortars, and set by the strained juice in vessels 

 until it is concreted in the form of snow or salt."' 

 The same hisiorian relates, that eleven camels 

 laden with sugar were captured by the Christians. 

 A similar adventure hapjTcned to Richard Camr-de- 

 Lion, in the second crusade. A third writer, in 

 1124, fells us, that in "Syria reeds grow that are 

 full of honey; by- which is meant a sweet juice, 

 which by pressure of a screw engine, and concre- 

 ted by fire, becomes sugar." These are the ear- 

 liest notices of the method of making sugar; and 

 they refer to an apparatus and to processes used 

 in the Saracen empire, and not known at that 

 time, so far as European records siiow, to be used 

 any where else. At the same time sugar was 

 made at Tyre in Syria, then subject to the Sara- 

 cens? ; and, in 1169, that city is mentioned as "fa- 

 mous for excellent sugar." 



The island of Sicily was the first spot upon 

 which Ihe sujrar-cane is known to have been 

 planted in Europe, though it is alloffether likely, 

 that it was planted by the Moors fuliy as early, if 

 not earlier, in Spain and Portugal. That island 

 was conquered by ihe Saracens in the early part 

 of the ninth century, and was retaken by the Nor- 

 mans at the close of eleventh. Immediately alter 

 that event we find, that large quantities of sugar 



