460 AGRICULTURE. 



Terre aux Boeufs, below the city, and, nothing daunted, resolved 

 to carry on the manufacture of sugar. He secured the services 

 of M. Morie, who had gained some experience in the manufacture 

 at St, Domingo. He was more successful ; and at a grand din- 

 ner with Don Reindin (then Spanish Intendant of Louisiana), 

 given to the public authorities of New Orleans, he exhibited as 

 a curiosity a few small loaves of refined sugar, the first ever pro- 

 duced in Louisiana. 



In 1792 Etienne Bord, a planter living a few miles above the 

 city, finding his indigo crops a failure, determined, as a dernier 

 resort, to try the cultivation of sugar. At length, in 1795, his 

 success was partial, and in the following year, under the auspices 

 of Morie, it was rendered complete. He was induced to make 

 further improvements and essay new experiments, until he 

 fully established this, one of the most productive branches in 

 Louisiana. 



At that time there were but two varieties of cane in Louisiana 

 the Malabar or Bengal, and the Otaheite ; these have disap- 

 peared, or nearly so, and have given place to the purple or red- 

 ribbon cane of Java or Batavia. The Dutch introduced it, about 

 the middle of the last century, to St. Eustatius, Cura9oa, Guiana, 

 and Surinam, whence it spread all over the West Indies, and 

 over a portion of the South American continent. 



In 1814 an American schooner imported a few bundles of this 

 cane into Georgia, and in 1817 about a dozen of these plants 

 were brought to New Orleans by John Joseph Coiron, who 

 planted them in his garden at Terre aux Boeufs. Meeting with 

 the most gratifying success in their cultivation, Mr. Coiron, in 

 1825, imported a sloop load from Savannah, which he planted on 

 his estate, known as the St. Sophie plantation, about thirty-six 

 miles below the city. Thence originated the ribbon-cane, or 

 Javanese, now most generally grown throughout Louisiana and 

 Texas. 



The French were the first to collect agricultural statistics on 

 this continent. The governors of Canada and of Louisiana, from 

 the year 1689 until the termination of the French rule in those 

 colonies, obtained every year the number of acres cultivated, the 

 amount of crops raised, the number of horses, cows, sheep, and 

 swine, and the success which attended the cultivation of new 



