The Sugar-Cane.
Sugar is found in a great many vegetables, particularly in beets, carrots, parsnips, sugar-cane, Indian corn, the sugar-maple tree, &c. Sugar is manufactured from beets, in large quantities, in France, and in this country it is made from beets also, to some extent. It is also made from the juice of the maple tree, particularly in the western states. In March the trees are tapped in the sides, and little reeds are inserted, in which the sap, as it ascends from the earth to the extremities, is caught and conducted into wooden troughs. It is then boiled down, and becomes first molasses and then sugar. Many millions of pounds are made in this way each year.
But this is a very small quantity, compared with what is made from the sugarcane, in the West Indies, Louisiana, and South America. The sugar-cane is a jointed reed, of a fine straw color, growing from eight to fourteen feet high. It terminates at the top in blade-shaped leaves, the edges of which are finely notched. Its flowers form a delicate silver-colored cluster.
When the cane is about a year old, it is cut and crushed between iron rollers, which press out the juice. This is then conducted into large copper boilers, and by various processes, of boiling and cooling, it is at last made into sugar, and molasses, the latter being the liquid part that drips from the sugar. In the process of manufacture, a good deal of lime and bullocks’ blood are mixed with the juice of the cane, and these assist in refining the sugar.
A very interesting discovery has lately been made in this country, which is, that the stalks of Indian corn, if the ears are cropped just after they begin to set, will produce more sugar than the cane. Accordingly a machine for the crushing of the stalks has been contrived, and a model of it may be seen at the patent office at Washington. It is said that a single acre of ground will yearly produce a ton of sugar, and it is believed that sugar will soon be raised in abundance in all the western states, in this way. The stalks make excellent fodder for cattle, after the juice is crushed out.
Sugar is now regarded as one of the necessaries of life, and about 600,000 tons, or 120,000,000 of pounds are annually produced. Yet it seems that sugar was not known to the Greeks or Romans, and it is never mentioned in the Bible. It was, in fact, only known as a medicine, till modern times. In the tenth century it took the place of honey in the druggist’s shop, and was chiefly used in fevers, to relieve them.
The sugar-cane was found growing wild in the West Indies, by Christopher Columbus. The art of refining sugar so as to make it white, was discovered in the sixteenth century, by a Venetian, who made a vast fortune by it.