Development of the Beet-Sugar Industry Z 
sold by apothecaries. In ancient times, honey was the 
chief source of sweet. This was supplemented by sweet 
fruits and sirups, but no refined sugar was extracted 
from any source to be used as ordinary food. 
It is not certain whether the first sugar was obtained 
from sugar-cane or from the bamboo, which belongs to 
the same family. Early Greek and Roman writers men- 
tion it as a rare product. Theophrastus, in the third 
century B.c., refers to it as honey which comes from bam- 
boos, and Pliny tells of sugar in Arabia and India. Very 
little sugar-cane was found in Bengal before the fifth 
century A.D., but about this time it was introduced into 
the Tigris Valley and soon after into the Euphrates Val- 
ley. In 627 a.p. it was found in Persia and carried west- 
ward. About the middle of the eighth century the Moors 
carried it to Spain, this being its first introduction into 
Europe. It is known to have been raised in China at 
an early date and has been grown there continuously ever 
since. , 
By the tenth century, sufficient sugar was produced 
in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to attract 
traders, and it was sometimes used as food in special feasts. 
It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century, 
however, when Queen Elizabeth of England introduced 
it into her household, that sugar could be considered as 
part of the diet. 
Sugar-cane went from Spain to Sicily and Cyprus in 
the thirteenth century. The King of Portugal in the 
fifteenth century sent cuttings from Sicily to Madeira 
and the Canary Islands, from where it went to Brazil 
during the early part of the next century. About the same 
