The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-11-13
The Scribe's Report.

Not single new member has been
caught for the Junior Branch of the
Hill Country Club by the sugared bait
we threw out month ago. Whether
this is because the boys and girls have
ceased to care for sweets, or whether
they were afraid of what might be at
the other end of the line, we do not
know. The questions were no harder
to answer than many of those which
wide-awake pupils are continually run
ming across in connection with their
school work; and, as the Scribe has
never been asked to obtain informa-
ton for you on any of these points, in
accordance with the plan proposed
when this department was started, was
it not fair to conclude that you have
other ways of obtaining whatever in
formation you care to have?
We have received from one who
already BELONGED to the Club-our
youngest member-answers to all but
two of the questions asked October 9.
AS it was only required for " honorable
mention that " nearly all " the ques-
tions be answered, the name of Edna
B. Dana will stand at the head of our
list; and we will hope to have other
names to place with it the next time.
The questions she did not answer
were the first and third These were
the most difficult ones for which to find
answers without books of reference to
consult. Yet in Higginson's Young
Folks History of the United States,
which is used as textbook in some of
our schools, an early traveller is quoted
as saying that if the Dutch people of
New York in colonial times could have
d" a piece of sugar" to add to the but
termilk and bread on which they
dined, " it was called delicious" This
was in the early part of the seven
teenth century--a little more than two
hundred fifty years ago-and it shows
that sugar, although known, was not so
common then as it is now. Its use in
creased rapidly, however, from about
that time, until there is now, perhaps,
no other single article of food so uni
versally liked both by civilized and saw
age people of every cline as sugar.
One need not look further than his
Bible to know that honey was the sub
stitute for sugar in ancient times. With
the help of a concordance long list of
Bible references to honey and honey
comb may be found; and other ancient
writings contain similar illusions to it.
When the Greeks first heard of sugar
as prepared in India and China, from
sugar-cane, where it originated, they
called it " honey contained in reeds.''
Sugar was introduced into Southern
Europe in the ninth century, but did
not reach England until the fourteenth
century.
AS to the price of sugar then, the
question asked ouly for its relative
price then and now. You all know
that in years when there is not " a gooC
run of sap the price of maple sugar is
higher than when there is a great abun
dance; and so of whatever is raised fol
market. Hence you might have guessed
with Yankee-like shrewdness that the
price of sugar would be much higher
when there was but little made, thar
now when millions of tons are manu-
featured every year; and your guess
would have been quite correct. AS {
matter of fact, sugar is known to have
been sold in the year 1879 for abou
four dollars pound.
The answers received give the fol