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 deg. or 25 deg. (of the centigrade thermometer), yet it will
prosper, though with less produce, where it only reaches 19 deg. or 20
deg. (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 deg. (centigrade), yet sugar
is procured at 6,600 feet.

The fertility and productiveness of the sugar-cane