CULTURE OF THE SUGAR-CANE.—NO. I. 
165 
We commence in the present number of our pe¬ 
riodical, a series of articles on the introduction of 
the sugar-cane into Georgia, and the best method 
of culture and making sugar in the United States. 
They are written by one of the most eminent plan¬ 
ters of the south, and one whose elegant pen has oft¬ 
en been devoted, in various publications, to the cause 
of agriculture. These will be followed by others 
on the culture of rice which will be found of great 
value. Through the ability and kindness of south¬ 
ern friends, our paper, from its commencement, has 
been one of the best exponents of the agriculture 
of the south, and it is ever our intention to keep it 
so ; and we trust thereby to make it among the 
most useful and popular publications of the day, to 
the residents of that highly-favored section of our 
country. 
CULTURE OF THE SUGAR-CANE.—NO. I. 
Introduction of the Sugar-Cane into Georgia. 
—In the winter of 1805, my friend, Mr. Cooper of 
St. Simons, who had received a few plants the 
previous year, sent me one hundred of the Otaheite 
cane, introduced, among others, from Otaheite, by 
Lieut. Blight. Before that time, from 1794 to 
1801, the revolution in St. Domingo (which was 
but an extension of the same flame which had car¬ 
ried murder and desolation as well into every cot¬ 
tage, as into every palace in France) had driven 
some few Frenchmen to fly for refuge from their 
burning houses, and their frantic pursuers, on 
board American vessels, with such of their faith¬ 
ful slaves as would follow them. When there, 
they naturally turned their hopes to Louisiana, 
where they would find Frenchmen, and where 
they might find a home for themselves and their 
servants. To these unhappy men, did Louis¬ 
iana owe the introduction of the Creole-cane, a 
small yellow kind, and the only cane then grown 
in the French islands, and the manufactory of su¬ 
gar. 
A young friend of mine, who had been educated 
in France, had gone to New Orleans soon after the 
sugar-cane had been introduced, and sugar man¬ 
ufactured. Among other communications, he men¬ 
tioned while there, that the orange-trees had been 
entirely destroyed by frosts. As the orange-trees 
on the coast of Georgia, had been growing from the 
first settlement of the country by General Ogle¬ 
thorpe, without injury, I naturally concluded that 
we, too, might grow the cane, and might man¬ 
ufacture sugar, and from that period I was anxious 
to make the attempt; but it was not until the 
winter of 1805, that my friend, Mr. Cooper, had 
furnished me with the means of doing so. My 
hundred cane, produced three thousand, and from 
these most of the cane of Georgia, and even Flor¬ 
ida has come. 
In 1808, 1 had extended my planting of cane to 
eight or ten acres; and about the same period, 
the evil spirit which had been long abroad in Eng¬ 
land, and that was destined to curse her colonies 
first, and then the father-land, had begun to make 
thinking men in Jamaica and other colonies, doubt 
of the course of English legislation, and to look 
abroad for a future home. Among them several 
came to Georgia, and were surprised at the size 
to which my cane grew, and its apparent sweet¬ 
ness ; for be it remembered, at that time, in none 
of the British colonies, had the hydrometer been 
applied to the measure of the sweets of the cane. 
The opinion of these gentlemen, with the conclu¬ 
sions I had drawn from the report of my friend 
from Louisiana, determined me, in despite of the 
embargo laws, to proceed in the cultivation of 
sugar as a crop. My success for the first few 
years, determined my neighbors to follow my ex¬ 
ample, and everywhere sugar plantations sprang 
up around me. The price of sugar was then about 
10 cents per lb., a remunerating price. A few 
cane were carried up the Altamaha, and its tribu¬ 
tary streams, the Oconee and Ocomulgee, by every 
boat; and very soon, in travelling from Darien to 
Milledgeville, or Macon, by other routes, the cane 
was seen growing, in luxuriance, around every 
log-house on the way. The soil was light and 
warm, and had been fertilized, by the breeding of 
cattle, which had heretofore been gathered togeth¬ 
er at night, to give milk to the family, and but¬ 
ter, and abundance of every kind; and now a lux¬ 
ury was added, the only luxury that is in some de¬ 
gree necessary to man. I have nowhere seen, I 
have nowhere read, of any region where sugar¬ 
cane grows with so little labor to its grower, and 
sugar is manufactured with so little trouble to its 
manufacturer, as in the pine-lands of Georgia and 
Florida, for 150 miles from the sea. 
The price to which sugar has fallen, has involved 
in debt and ruin, the growers of sugar for sale for the 
consumption of others, in most countries; but their 
very enthralment, the great expense in which they 
have involved themselves in preparing the means 
necessary for commencing the culture and man¬ 
ufacture of sugar upon a large scale, has bound 
them as with an iron chain, to a profitless pursuit. 
For myself, after 30 years and more of experience, 
and after having read all that has been published 
in the English language upon sugar, I became sat¬ 
isfied that sugar can not be produced for sale in 
any country or in any climate, under 5 or 6 cents 
per lb. England, in the fell purpose of destroying 
the colonies of other nations, and putting down the 
growing of sugar, of cotton, and of indigo, in coun¬ 
tries that border the Atlantic, consented to destroy 
her own colonies. She would still have Hin- 
doostan, and her hundred and twenty millions of 
abject subjects, who would and must labor at n ?r 
will for 2 anas (6 cents) per day ; this would buy 
from 2 to 4 seir (4 to 6 lbs.) of rough rice, a little 
salt, and a cotton cloth to cover their waist. In 
Hindoostan, and her hundred isles in India, there 
are no radicals to burn barns, and to light up 
wheat-stacks; there are no Daniel O’Connells to 
dingle in their ears Irish rights, or Irish wrongs. 
But there is in the United States, the same blood, 
flowing through the same veins, and the same 
elastic spirit, which has descended to them from 
their common Anglo ancesters, which directs them 
to the best results, through the simplest means. 
If, then, England should succeed in burning every 
