SUGAR
Of all the foods which it is necessary to conserve, sugar is the easiest to do without. If the war and what it means has become part of a person's consciousness, he wishes only the bare essentials. Sugar is a luxury of former times which has become a commonplace to-day. The average use in the United States was 83 pounds per person last year—1-2/3 pounds a week—less than one hundred years ago the yearly consumption was 9 pounds. Sugar was a rare luxury. It will do no harm to regard it so again.
WHY IS THERE A SUGAR SHORTAGE?
Sugar is scarce for two reasons—much less beet-sugar is actually being grown, and some of the cane-sugar is too far away to be available. The sugar-beet, grown in temperate climates, and the sugar-cane, native in tropical and semitropical regions, are the only two sources of sugar large enough to be of more than local importance.
Before the war, 93 per cent of the entire world crop of beet-sugar was grown in Europe. The industry was started by Napoleon in the early nineteenth century when he was at war with most of Europe, and France was shut off from her supply of cane-sugar from the West Indies. The industry spread over the great plain of Central Europe, from the north of France over Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungary to Central Russia. In 1914 all of these countries were producing enough sugar for their own needs. England produced none at all, but the continent, especially Germany and Austria, supplied her with about 54 per cent of what she needed.
MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF EUROPEAN BEET SUGAR FACTORIES—ALSO BATTLE LINES AT CLOSE OF 1916
ESTIMATED THAT ONE-THIRD OF WORLD'S PROOUCTION BEFORE THE WAR WAS PRODUCED WITHIN BATTLE LINES
The beet-sugar industry in the United States started in 1863 and has grown rapidly since 1897. In 1917 it supplied 22 per cent of the consumption.