270 humboldt's cuba. 



of loaf) ; consequently, a hectar, in beet root, yields 

 250 kilogrammes of refined sugar. 



Shortly before my arrival at Havana, some sam- 

 ples of beet root sugar were carried there from 

 Germany, and this article was said " to menace the 

 existence of the sugar-growing isles of America." 

 The sugar-planters saw, not without some alarm, 

 that it was a substance exactly like cane sugar ; but 

 they consoled themselves with, the hope that the cost 

 of the labor, and the difficulty of separating the 

 crystallizable sugar from so large a mass of vegetable 

 pulp, would make the operation expensive and pro- 

 fitless. Since that time chemistry has triumphed 

 ever these obstacles; for, in 1812, there were in 

 France two hundred manufactories of sugar from 

 the beet root, working with variable results, and 

 producing a million kilogrammes of sugar, annually. 

 But the inhabitants of the Antilles, well aware of 

 what transpires in Europe, entertain now no fears of 

 the beet root, grape, or chestnut sugar, nor of the 

 coffee of Naples, or the indigo of the south of 

 France. 



The greatest changes which have been produced 

 in the culture of the sugar cane, and the laboratories 

 of the plantations, took place between the years 

 1796 and 1800. First, mules were substituted for 

 oxen, as motive-power for the sugar mills ; then 



