Evening star., 1918-10-06
THE SUGAR HABIT.

THE growth Of the sugar-eating
habit Is one of the food romances
of the world The value and the food
use of sugar cane have been known to
certain races of mankind for many CEN
turies. This plant was first introduced
into Sicily by the Arabs early in the
eighth century, the exact date as given
by some historians being the year 7O3.
From Sicily sugar cane was transported
and transplanted to Africa, thence to
Spain, and later it's cultivation was be-
gun all along the coast of the Mediter-
ranean sea as we'll as on the islands and
the borders Of the Indian ocean.
During the middle ages in Europe
sugar was to be found for sale only in
the shops of the apothecaries. An ounce
of this sweet was considered to be a
large sale at one time. for i. was then
one of the most costly things carried in
the apothecary's stock. 1t was used to
sWeeten the medicines of that Age, most
of which were extremely bitter and the
large majority of them nauseous. No
body thought of using sugar on the ia
BILE; besides. the habit of drinking tea
and coffee had not been acquired in Eu-
rope. The principal table sweet was
honey. The Crusaders found extensive
sugar cane plantations in Tripoli, Meso-
potamia, Syria. Antioch and Cyprus, and
by the fourteenth century sugar cane
was being cultivated in every part of the
known world where the soil and climate
were propitious.
Even under these conditions the use
of sugar was limited in a way that the
people of today would not easily under
stand. for the United States alone uses
about S,000.0O0,o00 pounds a year. In
1880 the annual consumption of sugar in
the United States was slightly more
than ten pounds per person, and accord
ing to the latest available statistics the
United States had risen to something
over ninety pounds per year.
1t is curious matter that the first
home of the sugar cane has not been
determined and. SO far as botanists
know. IL has never been found growing
wild. The earliest reference to sugar
which modern men have found is in
the sacred books of the Hndoos.
Historians say that the sugar cane
was introduced by Columbus in Canto
Domingo. that it spread from that
island to Cuba and Mexico and that
the Portuguese introduced the cane
into Brazil, bringing it from Madeira.
Some authorities have said that sugar
cane was introduced into Louisiana In
1851 by Jesuit priests, who had it
lIOIu odIlO DOIllHSO, Will
others give the date Of the first plant
ing of sugar cane in Louisiana as
1897 and make no reference to it's
having been brought in by the Jesuits.
There has been remarkable cheap
ening in the processes for producing
sugar. Roughly, one-half of the sugar
of the world, up to the outbreak OF
the war, was produced from cane and
the other half from beets. The cane
sugar belt reaches around the world
on both sides of the equator, and is
generally included between latitude 30
degrees north and 80 degrees south.
The sugar beet belt lies only in the
north temperate zone, the principal
beet sugar countries being the United
States. Russia. Germany, France and
Austria.
The United States and Spain are the
only countries which produce both
cane and beet sugar in any considera-
BILE quantity. The development of the
beet sugar industry in the United
States has been one of the great agri-
cultural and manufacturing growths
of this country. From 1898 the beet
sugar production in the United States
increased from $4,000 tons to approxi-
mately 100000 tons in 1915.