.SUGAR CULTURE. 



251 



JSurope, to cultivate the principal articles necessary 

 for the sustenance of man. This system of agricul- 

 tural life among the people, is the most natural, and 

 is that which inspires society with the greatest con- 

 fidence, and it has been preserved in Mexico, Peru, 

 and the temperate and cold regions of Cundina- 

 marca, where the power of the whites has extended 

 over a vast expanse of country. Several alimentary 

 plants, as the plantain, yuca, maize, the cereals of 

 Europe, and the potato, have been, at different 

 elevations above the level of the sea, the basis of 

 continental agriculture within the tropics. Indigo, 

 cotton, coffee, and the sugar-cane, are found only in 

 scattered groups in those countries. 



The same was the case in Cuba, and the other 

 islands of the Antilles, for two and a half centuries. 

 The same plants which had served to maintain the 

 half-savage Indian, were cultivated there, and the 

 vast plains of the larger islands were filled with 

 numerous herds of cattle. In 1520 Pedro de Atienza 

 planted the first sugar-cane in St. Domingo, and rude 

 cylinder presses, moved by water-power, are still 

 constructed there. Cuba participated very slightly 

 in this new industry, and it is most singular that the 

 historians of the conquest, at as late a period as 

 1553, do not speak of any other export of sugar to— 

 Spain and Peru, than that of Mexico. Havana, far 



