THE WORLD'S SWEET TOOTH

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2721, 16 March 1916, Page 3

THE WORLD'S SWEET TOOTH

WHO DISCOVERED SUGAR? Tho world mis had a "sweet tooth" for many ages. People have been eating . sugar irom tunc immemorial, and growing sugar-cane is an industry so old that it antedates the Christian era by many centuries. An article by lidward Albes iui the "Pan-American Union -bulletin" gives a comprehensive account of tile sugar-cane industry iu the American, awl incidentally embodies an interesting resume of the history of the industry throughout the world.

Scientists, do not know just where tlve sugar-cane originated, he writes, for nowhere has it been found in a wild state. It has been a cultivated product for many .centuries, and the first mention to be found in written records is in tho sacred book or the Hindus. "I have crowned thee with a shooting sugar-cane, so that thou shitlt not be averse to me," was written many centuries before the Christian era. In the train of Alexander the Great during his Asiatic conquests wore some observant persons who made notes of whit they saw, when not too busy Jailing off the inhabitants, and in these written documents, according to later writers- who fell heir to them, is told the story of "a reed growing in India which produces honey without bees." Thus sugar-cano evidently was well known in that country J3U B.C.

_As to the manufactured product of the. cane, ■ the first kind of sugar of which mention is made was concentratu c v"° J' uice > ca Hed "gur" in India, 'gud' in Sanskrit, and this seems to have been known as a food for iirehistoric times. That its manufacture Was a well-established industry .in India in i ? century is attested by the old Chinese Encyclopaedia, the Pontsno-kang-niu,. which states that {he Emperor T ai-tsung, who reigned from 627 to GqO a.d., sent some of his people to cellar to learn the art of sugar-making, lhe manufacture of sugar-, even in the early centuries of ; the Christian era. was not restricted to the mere evaporation of the juice of the cane to dryness, for the Arabs and Egyptians had soon learned Tioiv to purify raw sugar b.V recrystallisation, and, incident/illv, how to make a great variety of sweetmeats, or candy, out of tho produco. lhe author tells of the introduction ot the cane into Sicily by the Arabs in 7Ud, whence it was taken'(to Africa, to fepain, and all along the coast of the ivlediterranean Sea, as well as to the islands and borders of the <• Indian Ocean. 'file Crusaders found extensive sugar-cane plantations in Tripoli, Mesopotamia, Syria, Antioch, ad Cyprus,, and by the fourteenth century the being cultivated in every part or the known world where soil and climate were propitious. . It came to South America by being introduced into Brazil by the Portuguese, who brought it from Madeira, and thence it spread to nearly all the other countries of that continent. Columbus is said to have brought it to the Island of Santo Domingo, whence it, spread to Mexico and Cuba. It was introduced into the other islands, of the West Indies as soon as they came under European domination. The first sugar-cano camo to Louisiana by being sent, to tho Jesuits from Santo Domingo in 1751, some English anthorities giving the date as 1737. ■ Although practically, all of the countries of tho Pan-American Union cultivate the cane, Cuba is the greatest producer of cane sugar, not only in the Western Hemisphere, but in the 'world.. The total production of the AVestern Hemisphere for the 1913-14 season amounted to 4,919,814 „ons, of which' Cuba produced 2,597,732 tons, or nearly 52 per cent. The total sugarcane production of the world was 9,773,348 tons, and deducting the 2,202,C00 tons produced .by India and locally consumed, it is seen that Cuba produces nearly 35 per cent, of the cane-sugar that is available iu the markets of the world.

Tho United States is the greatest sugar-consuming country in tho world. In 1913 its total consumption amounted to 3,743,139 tons—including cane, beet, and maple. This is a per capn.. consumption of 84.5 pounds per annum. Much of this is consumed In the form of candy, over 5000,000,000 dollars being spent for that'sweet commodity in the United States every yew- i.