



1QO CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



tages to the nations of Europe. To the Crusades the world is 

 indebted for the modern manufacture and commerce of sugar. 



Its cultivation in Spain is referred to by some old writers as 

 early as the year A. D. 1052; and it was said of Tyre in 

 Syria, in the year 1169, that "that city was famous for excel- 

 lent sugar." It was produced in Sicily, in 1148; in Madeira, 

 1419; in the Canary Islands, 1503. White sugar made its first 

 appearance it is said, at Vienna, in 1333; and is mentioned as 

 one of the heaviest items in household expenditures; four years 

 previous to this, loaves of sugar were sold in Scotland at one 

 ounce of pure silver per pound, rather more than four dollars 

 of our money at the present day. The business of cultivating 

 the cane, and the manufacture of the sugar, was commenced in 

 good earnest by the English, in 1643, who had previously 

 settled the Island of Barbadoes. Their neighbours, the French, 

 were not far behind, as we find them entering into the busi- 

 ness, in 1648, in the Island of Gaudaloupe, on the grand scale. 



The culture and fabrication of sugar being found profitable, 

 the Dutch, Spaniards, and Portuguese entered largely into the 

 new trade, and every island, of which they had severally be- 

 come possessed, by the late discovery, suitable for its culture, 

 was appropriated to it, and the unhappy inhabitants, in many 

 instances, compelled to act the part of slaves in its fabrication. 

 In 1518-19, St. Domingo contained fifty-seven cane planta- 

 tions, and twenty-eight sugar presses. But in the short space 

 of sixty years, if our authority is correct, we find this one 

 island, exporting to Europe, the almost incredible amount of 

 sixty-five thousand tons of sugar per annum! 



It cannot, however, stand the cold of high latitudes. The 

 zone of its cultivation extends to about 35 on either side of 

 the equator this is the most suitable range. Although it has 

 been cultivated, and in some instances successfully, between 

 the thirty-fifth and fortieth degrees of latitude. 



H. THE SUGAR MAPLE. 



THE sugar-maple, *flcer saccharinum, is one of the innu- 

 merable marvels of the American forest, extending over avast 

 tract of country, from the 36th to the 48th degree of latitude, 

 and in longitude half the width of the continent. No tree, 

 with the exception of perhaps the oak and pine, has obtained 

 a more extensive and just celebrity than the sugar-maple. The 

 extraordinary neatness of its appearance, and the beauty of its 

 foliage, which in summer is of the liveliest green, and in 



