A January  1915™' }  Development  of  the  Sugar  Industry.  13 
Caliphs  with  agriculture,  the  sciences,  and  the  useful  arts  was  one 
great  means  of  preserving  the  civilization  of  the  ancient  East  and 
transmitting  it  to  Europe.  The  Mohammedans,  in  their  conquests 
of  Persia  and  India,  came  early  in  contact  with  the  sugar  cane  and 
transplanted  it  to  the  conquered  nations  of  the  west.  Improve- 
ments in  cultivation  and  irrigation  were  introduced,  and  the  famil- 
iarity of  Arabian  alchemists  and  physicians  with  the  process  of 
recrystallizing  salts  led  them,  no  doubt,  to  apply  the  same  principle 
in  refining  sugar.  In  the  books  of  the  great  Arabian  scientist 
Avicenna,  who  lived  about  the  year  1000,  we  find  sugar  described 
as  we  now  know  it,  and  from  this  time  onward  the  use  of  sugar 
was  destined  to  increase,  until  from  one  of  the  rarest  and  most 
expensive  articles  of  luxury  it  became  one  of  the  cheapest  and 
most  abundant  commodities. 
From  the  valley  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  the  Arabs  carried 
the  sugar  into  Egypt  and  Palestine  and,  with  the  extension  of  their 
conquests  westward,  transported  its  culture  to  Asia  Minor,  northern 
Africa,  to  the  Mediterranean  islands  of  Cyprus,  Rhodes,  Crete, 
Malta,  and  Sicily,  and  finally  to  the  continent  of  Europe  itself,  where 
it  was  widely  cultivated  in  southern  Spain,  where  its  culture  survives 
to  the  present  day. 
One  great  factor  which  favored  the  introduction  of  sugar  to 
Europe  was  the  Crusades.  Readers  of  Joinville's  chronicle  will 
remember  how  the  crusaders  found  the  sugar  cane  growing  in 
Palestine  and,  like  the  soldiers  of  Alexander  1500  years  before, 
brought  back  stories  of  the  wonderful  reed  whose  sweet  juice  in- 
vigorated them  after  weary  conflict  or  march.  One  of  the  chief 
benefits  of  the  Crusades  was  the  expansion  which  followed  in  the 
commerce  between  Asia  and  Europe,  the  chief  city  for  the  impor- 
tation of  Eastern  commodities  being  Venice.  The  Venetians  im- 
proved the  art  of  refining  sugar,  which  they  learned  from  the  Arabs, 
and  during  all  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  held  a 
monopoly  for  supplying  Europe  with  sugar. 
With  the  increase  in  consumption  of  sugar,  the  areas  for  the 
cultivation  of  the  sugar  cane  widened.  In  1420  the  Portuguese 
transplanted  the  cane  from  Sicily  to  Madeira,  and  shortly  after  this 
time  it  began  to  be  cultivated  in  the  Canaries,  Azores,  and  other 
western  islands. 
Immediately  after  the  discovery  of  America  followed  the  trans- 
planting of  sugar  cane  to  the  western  hemisphere.    Columbus  on 
