The chief source of sugar is large grass (saccharum officinarum), of which there are several varieties, differing essentially in productiveness, but the best of which is the Otaheita cane, the stem of which is higher, thicker, and more succulent than the Creole cane, and which yields not only one-third more of juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of land; but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. One variety was known in India, in China, and all the islands of the Pacific ocean, from the most remote antiquity; it was planted in Persia, in Chorasan, as early as the fifth century of our era, in order to obtain from it solid sugar. The Arabs carried this reed—so useful to the inhabitants of hot and temperate countries—to the shores of the Mediterranean. In 1306, its cultivation was yet unknown in Sicily, but was already common in the island of Cyprus, at Rhodes, and in the Morea. A hundred years after it enriched Calabria, Sicily, and the coasts of Spain. From Sicily the Infant Henry transplanted the cane to Madeira; and from Madeira it passed to the Canary islands. It was thence transplanted to St. Domingo, in 1513, and has since spread to the continent of South America, and to the West Indies, whence the chief supply for Europe is obtained.
The vast circuit which it has described in these successive transplantations attest the sense which mankind had of the benefits it bestowed in its course. The introduction of the Otaheita cane is another proof of the obligations which modern times are under to navigation, as we owe this plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh[R].
The sugar-cane requires for its perfection, a temperature of considerable elevation, and succeeds best where the mean temperature is 24° or 25° (of the centigrade thermometer), yet it will prosper, though with less produce, where it only reaches 19° or 20° (centigrade). Its cultivation extends from the verge of the ocean, where the canes are often washed by the waves[S], to localities on the mountains 3,000 feet above the sea; and even in the extensive plains of Mexico and Colombia, where, from the reflection of the sun’s rays the heat is greatly increased, to 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, though the mean temperature of the city of Mexico be only 17° (centigrade), yet sugar is procured at 6,600 feet.
The fertility and productiveness of the sugar-cane is immense, second only to the sago-palms. “The first sugar-canes planted with care on a virgin soil, yield a harvest during twenty to twenty-five years, after which they must be replanted every three years.” In the island of Cuba, instances are known of a sugar-plantation existing for forty-five years. To procure new plants, the tedious process of sowing seeds is not necessary. The practice is followed of taking cuttings, and the stools, or scions, which spring from the joints (nodi) of the old plant, are fit to be separated in fourteen days; these, in the course of a year, are so well grown that they may be cut down, and submitted to the sugar-mill. An English acre under culture for sugar, in Java, yields 1285 pounds avoirdupois of refined sugar, and the produce at Cuba is nearly the same.
Let not the thought arise, on the perusal of these statements, that the gifts of Providence are distributed with partiality, as nothing could be more unfounded. Independent of the destruction of the plantations which tropical hurricanes so often occasion, an insect of the locust kind, more particularly in the East Indies, produces such fearful devastation as to realize the scene described by the prophet Joel—“A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them[T].” From such visitations, northern latitudes are generally exempt, and the constant struggle which man has had to maintain with the elements and a churlish soil, has so whetted his faculties as to render the return for his labour not only more certain, but even more abundant[U].
As if to shew that “the earth full of the riches of the Lord,” in parts of the world where the low temperature is an obstacle to the profitable cultivation of the sugar-cane, a substitute is found for it in the acer saccharinum, or sugar-maple, which presents the great peculiarity of the ascending sap being charged with sugar to such a degree as to be then fit for the manufacture of this valuable substance. There results from this circumstance a most important advantage to the inhabitants of the northern regions, where this tree grows, that the juice is extracted early in spring, a time when the rigour of the season condemns the labourer to inactivity. Besides, the sugar-maple grows spontaneously, and requires no care, till it is fit for tapping; and when deprived of its juice, and incapable of yielding more sugar, its wood is applicable to a far greater number and variety of uses than the bruised cane, since as fuel the maple is most valuable; and its ashes yield, from their richness in the alkaline principle, four-fifths of the potash exported to Europe from Boston and New York. The timber of the sugar-maple is also highly prized, both for common and ornamental purposes—as the beautiful bird’s-eye maple is obtained from this tree.
“The sugar-maple begins a little north of Lake St. John, in Canada, near 48° of north lat., which, in the rigour of its winter, corresponds to 68° of Europe. It is nowhere more abundant than between 46° and 43° of north lat., which space comprises Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the states of Vermont and New Hampshire, and the district of Maine. Farther south, it is common only in Genessee, in the state of New York, and in the upper parts of Pennsylvania. It is estimated by Dr. Rush, that in the northern part of these two states, there are 10,000,000 acres which produce these trees in the proportion of thirty to an acre. The process of making maple-sugar is commonly begun in February, or in the beginning of March, while the cold continues intense, and the ground is still covered with snow. The sap begins to be in motion at this season, two months before the general revival of vegetation. The sap continues to flow for six weeks; after which it becomes less abundant, less rich in saccharine matter, and sometimes even incapable of crystallization. In this case it is consumed in the state of molasses; or exposed for three or four days to the sun, when it is converted into vinegar by the acetous fermentation: a kind of beer is also made of it. The amount of sugar produced by each tree in a year varies from different causes. The yearly product varies from 2 lbs. to 4 lbs. for each tree[V].” The sap is most abundant from young trees, but less charged with sugar. The average produce is five per cent. of sugar. The richer the sap is in saccharine matter, it is so much the more profitable to extract it, as in such a case it is nearly pure from all mucilaginous matter, or free acid, and may be consolidated by the action of cold alone by merely freezing it, thus rendering boiling unnecessary.
Sugar exists in many other plants, such as the beet-root, from which it is extracted; and also the stem of the maize, or Indian corn, is charged with an extraordinary quantity of sugar, and it may either be brought to the state of a honey-like sugar, or the juice pressed out of the stalk, and fermented, forming the pulque de mahio, or pulque de Flaolli, in Mexico[W].
Gum has been already stated to be the basis of all the other organizable products, and it is found not only in almost all plants, but in nearly all parts of them. In a pure or nearly isolated state, it exists chiefly in the inner bark of vascular and especially exogenous trees, and is preserved in the interior with the greatest care: its escape externally results either from disease, as in the case of plum and cherry-trees, from the puncture of insects, cracks in the bark, or by artificial incisions. The death of the tree soon follows the loss of this important juice, and thousands of trees of the genus acacia are annually sacrificed in different parts of Africa to procure the gum-arabic of commerce. It is only in a few genera and tribes of trees, that it exists in so concentrated a state as to assume the solid form on exposure to the air, but in some of these the quantity is amazing. Hot countries are the chief abodes of such trees. Thus, besides the immense quantity obtained from the acacias, the anacardium occidentale (cashew-nut tree) in America, has furnished from a single tree a mass weighing forty-two pounds. Gum is mawkish, insipid, and generally unpalatable, yet highly nutritive; and the Africans, during the harvest of gum at Senegal, live entirely upon it, eight ounces being the daily allowance for each man. In general they become plump on this fare; and such should be the result, if the calculation be correct, which assigns as great nutritive power to four ounces of gum as to one pound of bread. This concentration of nourishment renders gum a peculiarly suitable food for lengthened journeys through the deserts, as it occupies small compass, and a little suffices to stay the cravings of hunger. Thus, upwards of a thousand persons may occupy more than two months in a journey from Abyssinia to Cairo without any other kind of food[X]. Its bland, demulcent properties fit it to correct the acrimony of the secretions formed under the influence of a tropical sun and torrid air, with a scanty and irregular supply of water. Plants, likewise, are preserved in a vegetative and living state, mid sandy and arid wastes, by the quantity of gum stored up in them. Hence succulent plants, such as cacti and others, may be found in the steppes and sandy plains of South America, verdant and healthy, though no rain may fall to convey fresh sap into them for months, or even a year. In the form of mucilage, i. e., gum in a state of solution, it is found in a very large number of plants, and thus contributes to the maintenance of man and animals. In these it is generally associated with some other principles, which render it either more palatable or more easily digested. A very large number of our esculent vegetables owe their nutritive properties to the gummy matters with which they abound, and the favour with which they are regarded to the other matters united with it. Those which have a bitter principle are very excellent, when this is in small proportion; and as, in most of them, the gummy matter is prepared first, requiring for its formation only a moderate degree of light and heat, while the bitter, or other principle, is added at a later period, under the influence of stronger light; such plants, when young, are tender and agreeable; nay, even very poisonous plants, when very young, are wholesome and pleasant, which, at a more advanced season, are virose and disagreeable. Thus, the peasantry of France and Piedmont eat the young crowfoots (ranunculus) and poppies, after boiling them, and find them safe and nourishing. The same result follows exclusion of light, as in the process of blanching, by which means celery, sea-kale, and other vegetables, are rendered esculent, which in the wild state are poisonous or repulsive. In northern latitudes, the light being intense for a short time only, many plants are used there which, in the southern, are dangerous or destructive, such as hemlock and monkshood. A moderate degree of bitterness is a very useful accompaniment of the gum, which alone is cloying and even oppressive to the stomach. The presence of a bitter principle in many lichens promotes their digestion, and thus even the tough and leathery ones, called tripe of the rocks, can be eaten, and sustain life amid great privations and sufferings. The rein-deer moss (cludonia rangiferina) is another lichen of great utility: it is not much employed as human food, but it is the main support of the rein-deer for a great portion of the year, and thus renders Lapland a fit abode for man.
A peculiar modification of gum constitutes pectine or vegetable jelly; and this occurs in fruits, such as the orange, currant, and gooseberry, &c., also in many of the algae or sea-weeds, which are, or ought to be, much employed as a delicate article of nourishment. The edible swallow’s nest, so greatly esteemed by the Chinese, is an alga, gathered by the birds. The Ceylon moss (Gigartina lichenoides), and the carrageen or Irish moss (Chondrus crispus), with many others, might be made to contribute largely to the subsistence of man. Not merely earth, from its fruitful bosom, but the vast ocean, offer their rich produce to nourish and sustain the only intelligent occupant of the globe, who should ever remember the declaration of the psalmist, “O Lord! how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches; so is the great and wide sea!” (Ps. civ.)