518 SOUTHERN FIELD CROPS 



From the West Indies, sugar-cane was introduced into 

 Louisiana and Florida about the middle of the eighteenth 

 centiu-y. 



The first sugar from sugar-cane in what is now the 

 United States was made in Louisiana in 1791, but so small 

 was the quantity that the product was rather an article 

 of curiosity than of use. In 1795 sugar was first manu- 

 factured in Louisiana on an extensive scale. De Bore, the 

 pioneer in sugar-making in the United States, made a 

 fortune in growing sugar-cane and in manufacturing sugar 

 on his plantation in Louisiana. 



504. Production. — From this small beginning the 

 production of. sugar increased so rapidly that at the be- 

 ginning of the Civil War, within two thirds of a century 

 after the first sugar was manufactured in Louisiana, the 

 annual production of sugar in that state had reached about 

 a quarter of a million tons. The Civil War reduced the 

 yield to a smaU fraction of this amount. At the end of 

 the first decade of the twentieth century Louisiana was 

 producing annually about a third of a milhon tons of sugar. 

 During this decade the sugar industry in the southern part 

 of Texas has developed rapidly. 



Hawaii produces somewhat more sugar, and Porto Eico 

 somewhat less, than does Louisiana. Cuba manufac- 

 tures considerably more sugar than the total product 

 of all the American states and territories just named. Cuba 

 and Java are the world's largest producers of sugar from 

 sugar-cane. 



In recent years the world's annual crop of sugar of all 

 kinds is about 14,000,000 tons, more than half of which 

 is made from sugar-beets. Sugar-cane affords aibout 



