The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1895-09-22
SUGAR.
A Brief Account Of Its History. Manu-
facture and Consumption.

Sugar can be obtained from an unlim
tied number of sources, both vegetable
and animal, but the main supply Is pro-
duced from the sugar cane. The beet
root, dlte palm, sorghum plant and the
map.e tree furnishes the next greatest
quantities in the order in which they are
FAMED.
The original home of the sugar cane
is not known. Reference is made In
1 the Bible to a Sweet cane" which was
/ probably sugar caneA Isaiah 0l2 B. c.
1 xiii, "a, says "1'hou hast brought me
! no sweet cane" But it appears to have
4 been first cultivated in the country ex-
tending from Cochin China to Bengal;
+, nor is there any reliable information
cls to when it was first used as an article
Of food. The art of boiling sugar was
known in Glngedic, East Indies, in the
early part of tIe seventh century, and
the cultivation of the cane spread west
ward from Persia till 1t reached Spain,
and in the year 1920 the Spaniards plant
ed it on the island of MADEIRA, and about
1894 IL was carried to st. Domingo, from
whence, in the sixteenth century, 1t
spread over the occupied portions of
the West Indies and South America.
Within the first twenty years of that CEN
tury the sugar trade of st. Domingo ex-
panded with the greatest rapldity, and it
was from the money obtained from the
import tax on this sugar that Charles
V obtained the funds with which to pay
for the building of his palaces in
Madrid and Toledo.
In the middle ages Venice was the great
European center of the sugar trade,
and towards the end of the fifteenth CEN
tury a Venetian citizen was paid re-
ward of 100000 crowns for the invention
of the art of making loaf sugar.
One of the earliest references to the
sale of sugar in England is that of 100000
pounds of sugar being shipped to Lon
don in 1919 by Thomasso Loredano,
merchant of Venice, to be exchanged
for wool, and in the same year it appears
in the accounts of the chamberlain Of
Scotland a payment at the rate of Is
gid (43 cents) per pound for sugar.
Until the greatly increased use of tea
and coffee in Europe-in the eighteenth
century-sugar had continued to be a
costly luxury and a medicine, but from
that time on it's consumption increased
enormously, the price having faiien and
with the new demand still lower rates
were conceded.
In ITO the total amount used in Great
Britain was 10000 tons; in 1900 1t had
risen to 10000 tons, and in 1885 to about
/ 200, COO tons, and in the United States
for the same year the consumption
amounted to about 1900 200 tons. The
total amount of sugar of al kinds pro-
duced in the world last year is estimated
in round numbers to be 10,OOO,0OO,0O0
pounds.
In 1894 the total consumption of. sugar
in the United States was 100000 tons,
or sixty three and one-haM pounds for
every man, woman and child in the coun-
try. In 1888 the per capita consumption
was forty-two pounds and in 1891 1t
reached the highest yet reported, viz:
sixty-two pounds.
OF the 100000 tons of sugar consumed
in the United States last year, 100000
tons were imported, the balance being of
domestic production, mostly from cane. |
The domestic production has increased |
from 10000 tons in 1880 to 10000 |
tons in 1S94-EX