ractical use was made of the discovery until 1801 when a factory
was established near Breslau, in Silesia. The European beet-sugar industry,
that has since attained enormous proportions, had its actual beginning in
the early years of the 19th Century. It was a result of the Napoleonic wars
of that period. When the wars were ended, and the blockades raised, the
industry was continued in France by the aid of premiums, differentials, and
practically prohibitory tariffs. The activities in other European countries
under similar conditions of governmental aid, came a little later. The
total world supply of sugar, including cane and beet, less than 1,500,000
tons, even as recently as 1850, seems small in comparison with the world's
requirement of about twelve times that quantity at the present time. The
output of beet sugar was then only about 200,000 tons, as compared with a
present production of approximately 8,000,000 tons. But sugar was then a
costly luxury while it is today a cheaply supplied household necessity. As
recently as 1870, the wholesale price of granulated sugar in New York
was thirteen and a half cents a pound, or about three times the present
average.

Cane sugar is produced in large or small quantities in some fifty
different countries and islands. In many, the output is only for domestic
consumption, or in quantity too small to warrant inclusion in the list of
sources of commercial supply. Sixteen countries are included in the list of
beet-sugar producers. Of these, all are in Europe with the exception of the
United States and Canada. Only two countries, the United States and
Spain, produce sugar from both beet and cane. British India leads in the
production of cane sugar, with Cuba a close second on the list, and Java
the third. In their total, these three countries supply about two-thirds
of the world's total output of cane sugar. Hawaii and Porto Rico, in that
order, stand next on the list of producers. Under normal conditions,
Germany leads in beet-sugar production, with Russia second, Austria-Hungary
third, France fourth, and the United States fifth, with Belgium, the
Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark following. The island of Cuba is
the most important source of commercial cane sugar. Immediately before
the revolution of 1895, its output a little exceeded a million tons. The
derangement caused by that experience covered several years, and it was not
until 1903 that so large a crop was again made. S