ABSTRACT
The cultivation of the sugar cane seems to have come from the East, and the extraction of sugar practised in early Christian times then passed into Sicily and later into Spain and Portugal. About the fifteenth century the manufacture was established in the West Indies and in Brazil. Hawkins brought sugar to England from San Domingo in 1563, and about this time English planters were prospering in Barbadoes. Common sugar exists in the juices of a great many plants and fruits, but the chief supplies of the world are derived from two sources, viz. the sugar cane, which is a tropical plant, and the sugar beet, which is cultivated only in temperate climates. Sugar is obtained from sugar canes by passing them between rollers whereby the juice is squeezed out. The latter then receives the addition of a very small quantity of lime and is heated to boiling to coagulate albuminous matters.
