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CHAPTER Y. 
SUGAR, COFFEE, CACAO, COCA. 
Prt^ress of the Sugar Cane throughont the Tropical Jikme— Tbe Tabitlftn 
Sugar Cane — The taemiia of the. Sagar Ctun^ — The Stigar-harvest — 
The Coffee Tree — Its ciUtivatioti and enemies — The CaCtto Tree and 
th« Vftoilia — The Cocon, Plant — AVontltrful strengthening effects of 
Cocoa, and fatal C(jnsei|ueace3 ol its abuse. 
Sugar is trndoobtedly one of tbe most valuable products 
of the vegetable world, and may be said with truth to be 
only surpassed in importance by the nourishing meal of 
the cereals, or the textile fibres of the cotton-plant. Our 
garden fi-uit owes its agreeable t^iste to the sugar which 
the ripening sun develops in its juices. Tbe sap of 
many a plant — the palm, the birch, the maple, the 
American agave — ^is rendered usefnl to man by the sugar 
it contains. It is this substance which imparts sweetness 
to the honey gathered by bees from flowers, and, after 
undergoing fernientationj changes the j nice of the grape 
into delicious wine. 
Bnt although sugar is of almost nuiversal occurrence 
throughout the vegetable world, yet few plants contain it 
in such abundance as to render its extraction profit«.ble; 
and even the beet- root requires high protective duties to be 
able to compete with the tropical sugar-cane, a member 
of the extensive family of the grasses. The original home 
of this plant— for which, doubtless, the lively fancy of 
the ancient Greeks, had they been better acquainted with 
it, would have invented a peculiar god, as for the vine or 
the cereals — was most probably soutli'eastem Auaia, where 
