504

We Americans in the United States eat 4,691, 926,400 lbs. of sugar yearly, so the census reports show — something over 60 lbs. apiece. This levee is one of the chief distributing points for our supply. For miles up and down the Mississippi here, on both sides of the great river, the levees are alive with freight-boats, — coast-vessels and ocean-steamers, — loading up. We are still over one hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico, but the Father of Waters sweeping by runs two hundred feet deep and half a mile wide, and New Orleans can take care of its enormous shipping interests.

When Columbus made his second American voyage in 1493 he carried sugar-canes from the Canary Islands to San Domingo, and the plants grew so well there that later experiments introduced them into Cuba and Mexico; it was, however, not until 1791 that sugar-cane was raised here in Louisiana. The very first successful sugar plantation in the United States was a little over two hundred years ago on land now covered by the city of New Orleans. The rich alluvial soil spread out by the river over lower Louisiana is admirably fitted for sugar planting.

The sugar-cane raised here averages from 10 to 12 per cent sugar, an enormous increase over the proportion of sugar in the original wild cane of centuries ago. The grinding of the canes in the mills extracts from 75 to 95 per cent of the sugar they contain; the extracted juices are chemically treated to neutralize the free vegetable acids associated with the sugar, and then the clarified juice is evaporated and crystallized, producing sugar of various grades and residual monasses. The complete refining of crystallized sugar is a supplementary process centralized in a few large establishments.

See encyclopædia articles on *Sugar* for interesting details regarding the successive stages of production in this enormous industry.

The Sweetest Spot on Earth — Sugar Levee, New Orleans, U. S. A.

Le Lieu le plus doux au Monde — Digue-de-Sucre, Nouvelle Orléans, E. U. d'A.

Der süchte Fleck auf Erden — der Zucker-Deich in New Orleans, Ver. Staaten.

Situación más dulce sobre la tierra — Digue de Azúcar, Nueva Orleans, E. U. de A.

Den sötaste platsen på jorden — Socker-resning, New Orleans, F. S. A.

“Сахарная Насыль” — Самое сладкое мебето в Мир; Нью Орлинст, Соединенные Штаты.