Foreign Vegetables. 409 
which Lucan in the Line above quoted, mentions 
under the Name of Arundo ten era. 
Some will here afk, why the native Sugar exud- 
ing fpontaneoufly from the Sugar-Cane is no longer 
found in the Shops, or no longer brought to us ? 
To thefe the Anfwer is eafy *, namely, becaufe at 
prefent very little of it is produced. In the Time 
of Diofcorides and Galen, when the Method of ex- 
pre fling and boiling the Juice was unknown, and 
the Reeds were not cut, but fuffered to grow for 
many Years, the Saccharine Juice, wherewith they 
were turgid, muft neceflarily exude from them, in 
the fame Manner as Gums and Refins flow from a 
great Number of Trees. Wherefore no Wonder if 
the Ancients had confiderable Quantities of this na- 
tive Sugar. But when the Love of Money and the 
Defire of Gain taught Men the Art and Method of 
drawing a larger Quantity of Sugar from thefe 
Reeds by cutting them down and prefling them, it 
became cuftomary with the Indians to cut their 
Reeds every Year, and to plant them again. Hence 
therefore it happens, that as no Reeds remain for 
many Years to be fufflciently replete with Saccharine 
Juice, the Operation of Nature is prevented, and 
fo the native Sugar of the Ancients is loft *. 
They who think the Sugar of the Ancients to 
have been different from ours objedl the Teftimony 
of Pliny , who tells us, that Sugar was only ufed in 
Medicines, and fays nothing of its Ufefulnefs in 
Seafonings and other culinary Purpofes. But the 
* My Author means, that it is fo very fcarce that none is 
brought into Europe ; for that it is not quite loft is evident from 
his own Words below; where he fays, that the native Sugar of 
the Arundo Arborefcens is ftill known to the Perjians , Turks. & c. 
and alfo that the native Sugar of the Arundo Saccharifera is now 
found, according to Pifo, in the Province of Rio de la Plata. 
Reafon 
