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THE  SUGAR-CANE  IN  LOUISIANA. 
Vaudreuil,  the  governor  of  the  colony  of  Louisiana,  that  the 
sugar-cane  was  first  introduced  into  the  province.  On  the  17th 
April  in  that  year,  200  soldiers  were  sent  from  France  to  com- 
plete the  military  force  in  that  colony.  The  transports  touched 
at  Hispaniola,  and  the  Jesuits  at  Leogana  in  the  Bay  of  Port- 
au-Prince,  obtained  permission  to  put  on  board  these  vessels, 
and  send  to  their  house  at  New  Orleans  some  sugar-canes,  and 
some  negroes  accustomed  to  their  cultivation,  and  the  manufac- 
ture of  sugar.  These  canes  were  planted  in  the  garden  of  the 
Reverend  Fathers,  where  the  first  district  of  New  Orleans  now 
is,  just  beyond  Canal  Street,  above  the  town,  as  it  then  existed. 
This  cane  was  of  the  Malabar  variety,  from  Bengal. 
For  the  first  two  years  after  the  planting,  the  Jesuits  only 
thought  of  propagating  the  cane,  and  the  endeavors  which  they 
made  in  the  following  years  to  extract  the  juice  were  fruitless. 
Nevertheless  they  did  not  despair  of  attaining  their  end. 
The  canes  planted  by  the  Jesuits  developed  well,  but  they  did 
not  attain  to  perfect  maturity ;  the  climate  did  not  allow  it. 
This  cane  was,  as  we  have  mentioned,  of  the  Malabar  variety, 
since  named  Creole  cane.  Is  was,  consequently,  to  the  practi- 
cally useful  spirit  of  the  Jesuits  that  Louisiana  owes  the  natu- 
ralisation of  the  sugar-cane,  which  has  since  been  the  source  of 
such  immense  wealth  to  her. 
In  1754,  the  Jesuits  tried  to  make  sugar  from  their  canes, 
but  were  unable  to  succeed  ;  they  thought  that  their  confined 
space  was  unsuitable  to  it ;  they  persevered. 
From  1752  to  1758  several  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood 
of  New  Orleans  procured  canes  from  the  Jesuits,  and  multiplied 
them  carefully.  In  1758,  a  rich  planter  of  the  name  of  Dubreuil 
tried  this  cultivation  on  a  large  scale.  He  built  sugar  works  on 
a  plantation  adjoining  the  lower  part  of  the  town.  This  property 
is  now  covered  by  the  Faubourg  Maugni,  third  district  of  New 
Orleans. 
From  1758  to  1763,  Dubreuil,  notwithstanding  all  his  care, 
obtained  very  doubtful,  or  rather  hopeless  results,  in  the  manu- 
facture of  sugar.  The  Jesuits,  on  the  other  hand,  succeeded  no 
better. 
In  1764,  the  Chevalier  de  Mazan,  whose  plantatation  was  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  river,  facing  the  town  of  New  Orleans, 
