Arizona republican., 1912-02-26
It Takes Half a Billion a Year to Satisfy Ameri- can Craving for
 SWeetmeatS
PROBLEM IS AN
 ECONOMIC ONE
Manufacture of Candy Has Direct Relation to Sug- ar Production in
 America.
[Stccial CoyrcSpondencci

NEW YORK, Feb. 25.-The great
 est sweet tooth in the world is Uncle ! Sans. To satisfy its cravings costs annually the enormous sum of ap- proximately a billion dollars of this
 half might be considered part of our national food bill paid for the sugar of commerce of which we con- | sume as food about eighty pounds ! per capita per annum. At present l about four-f -fifths of this sugar comes l from other countries, but scientists ! and agricultural experts who have studied the matter believe that with | proper encouragement the time is ! coming when all our sugar will be i grown at home.
 But the other S500, 0,0OO,000 represents | our annual candy bill according to the i estimates of Professor Surface of | Yale and this amount is certainly q 1 charge against the national sweet 1 tooth. Few persons realize the enor- l nous sum which We spend on candy | which in a single year would be l enough to pay for fifty battleships of the Dreadnought type. Not only are
 We unrivalled by any other country in the world in the consumption of candy. but in 1909 we consumed more shan all other countries reporting candy manufacture
 New York k undoubtedly the great est candy eating city in the world
 bo1h in total and per capita. With only about one sixteenth or the popu-
 lation of the country this city con sames more than one-tenth of all the candy. The immensity of these fig
 ures may be better grasped when it is shown that if all the city's candy
 were shipped in by rail it would fill d train of 12.5oo ears nearly loo miles in length. stretching from New York
 to Philadelphia Every day in the year thirty-five car train would have to pull into the city to supply the demand. To carry the to.al con sumption of the whole country would reuireq ar enormous train of 5000 cars and 3125 locomotives equal in length to the distance between New
 York and Chicago.
 Curiously enough while the history of candy is naturally intimately asso- cia.ed with that of sugar its use had become general throughout the world
 lo7g before sugar had come into use. even in the Eurcpean countries Ap-
 parcntly the first candy maker was a shrewd Roman baker named Julius
 Dragatus. one hundred anu thirty seven Years before the opening of the Christian era he made the first sugar plums and offered them for sale on he streets of Rome. Since then
 candy has steadily maintained or
 rather increased its popularity. It's
 manufactures and uses have for obvi- Ous reasons fluctuated in different
 countries as each nation has devel-
 oped the art of its manufacture in
 accordance with its own peculiar
 tastes. There are probably more diff
 ferert kinds of candy to be bought in
 New York cit. than anywhere else in the world. since it is curious fact that once a taste for a certain kind of candy is acquired. ii is extremely diff
 ficult to change it.
 To meet the demands of the many races which make mp the population of this city. it is necessary to import candies from their native lands and many anG curious are the varieties which arrive at this port. The Chi nese are past masters in the art of making strange and curious varieties of candies, seeming to take a peculiar satisfaction in planning and making
 puzzling shapes and forms. Two of the most curious of these are the candy orange and the candy egg.
 which are nothing more than the or ange peel and the egg shell filled with some variety of native candy but
 manipulated in such a way that the purchaser cannot find the opening through which the original contents
 was removed and the sweet injected.
 As compared to candy. sugar so
 far as its general cultivation ana use is considered. is d comparative young
 ster. It was first prepared either from sugar cane or bamboo. which be-
 longs to the same family. but investi-
 gators of the subject have not been able to agree as to where sugar cane
 was first cultivated and no conclu- sion has yet been reached as To when
 sugar was first prepared. According to one German scientist the cultiva tion of sugar cane was limited to Bengal until the fifth century after Christ and then introduced into the Tigris valley and later into the valley of the Euphrates It is fairly certain, however. that by the tenth century ! sugar Was manufactured in these val ! leys in sufficient quantities to attract
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