Commercial regulations, 66 trade and commerce of 458 Chicago, population of. 176, 341, 415, 488 Foreign postage to be paid in gold... 410 Cotton planting under government a California gold and silver mining. 230 Gold and silver mining in California mines on the Missouri River... 204 344 377, 224, 128, 65 amount of, in the U. S.....214, 448 270 442 California, peanuts in.... Consideration for an agreement, what mented on..... Commercial law explained and com- exports of flour, etc., from... 393 66 banks of Cents, coinage of, at mint Customs, laws relating to.... Collectors of customs, instructions to, 346 Health-New York vs. London...... 120 408 ..... ........ ..... 406 428 ......... 289 Law, commercial.....365, 292, 442, 497 European loan of Confederate States. 288 | Lumber trade of the U. S. for 1862.. 873 M. PAGE Postage, foreign, to be paid in coin... 410 410 Pompeii, the dead of, exhumed 501 Mariner's compass-iron ships....... 53 Phototypes-something new 428, 267, 186, 106, 501 Mercantile miscellanies, Mariners, notices to.......413, 264, 170 Q. Madagascar, the French treaty with.. 185 Quarantine bill-provisions of it..... 218 Michigan, financial condition.. Missouri, finances of... Mississippi, and the effect of this war 248 Quarrying instrument... 250 74 Pork packing in the West ......... 400 Tide-water receipts of produce .. 81 THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. JANUARY, 1863. SUGAR CANE, BEET ROOT, AND SORGHUM, WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR CONSUMPTION AND CULture. SUGAR, which enters so largely into the food of civilized people of the present day, and is so important an element of modern commerce, has only in the last two centuries begun to exercise a political influence, and, in some degree, bias the destinies of nations. The use of sugar in the East dates from time immemorial, but the barbarians of Western Europe acquired a taste for it only when the returning Crusaders brought it back among other of the marvels which they had encountered when invading the country of the Saracens. In the twelfth century the awakened demand had promoted traffic, and the Saracens introduced its culture into Rhodes, Cypress, Sicily, and the south of Spain. In the rich lands of Andalusia it found a genial soil, and became one of the elements of Spanish greatness, and it added to the commercial importance of the Portuguese. With the enterprise of those nations it passed into the Canaries and Maderias, and followed the fortunes of COLUMBUS to St. Domingo. Its culture there rewarded the labor of the planter in a manner to astonish even those who had been familiar with the rich yield in the fields of Andalusia. With the increased supply of sugar the market widened, and the people of Western Europe were yearly more anxious to purchase, while the increased prosperity that followed the discovery of America and the opening of the mines of precious metals, gave them the means to indulge in the luxury. From St. Domingo the culture was not slow in finding its way to the other West Indian islands and to the Spanish Main. The Portuguese introduced it into Brazil, and with a good supply of labor the product there reached some 75,000 tons per annum in the middle of the sixteenth century. The nations that had sought the American continent in search of gold, found their greatest source of wealth in the “sugar islands," of which St. Domingo remained the chief. The leading West ern powers were not long in coveting these possessions, and they changed hands frequently in the course of subsequent wars, through which, in the middle of the 17th century, England became possessed of Jamaica, there being then but three sugar works on the island. The severe labor of the canefield demanded many robust laborers, and England undertook, in a treaty with Spain, to supply those laborers for a given number of years from the coast of Africa. The laborers did not seem to multiply, but were kept up by importation into the islands, from the rich soil of which they extracted that wealth which poured into the laps of Lisbon and Havre and London. The blacks of Africa were mostly purchased with the wares of Lancashire, and were, so to speak, wrought up with the soil of the West Indies into sugar, which swelled the volume of European wealth. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that, under French rule, the first plantation was established in Louisiana; and when that great country became a part of the United States there were eighty-one sugar plantations there, which, in some degree, supplied the growing wants of the Western States. Up to that time the sugar used in Europe and America was cane sugar, drawn from the tropics, and its culture had spread into most of the known tropical regions of the earth. The market for sugar had become so extensive, and the people of Europe so accustomed to its use that it had become a necessity. When, therefore, the wars that grew out of the French revolution gave the supremacy of the seas to England, that power held the supply of sugar in her grasp, and Europe depended upon her for a supply, as it has latterly upon the Southern States for cotton. That accident of war, however, revolutionized the sugar trade in Europe. The great demand for the article stimulated invention, and the French Emperor offered a liberal reward for a substitute for cane sugar. A great number of substitutes presented themselves, but none proved successful except that made from beet root, and this, in the course of a few years, has become a rival to the cane sugar in the consumption of Europe. In France, particularly, the consumption of sugar is of three descriptions: that of cane, produced in the French and in foreign colonies, and beet root sugar made in France. The consumption of the latter in 1831, was 10,000 tons against 81,651 of cane. At present it is 120,000 tons against 80,000 tons of cane. In other words, the whole increase of the consumption of sugar in France has been derived from beet root. This mastery of the latter article over the former was attended by a long struggle between the opposing interests. At first beet root was protected against cane. They were then placed on an equality, and finally government favor leaned upon the side of cane sugar, without, however, staying the success of the beet root manufacture, which has spread into all the countries of Europe. The great success of the beet root culture led to numberless experiments upon other vegetables, in order to develope some still cheaper and more effectual method of producing the desired article, and these efforts were more or less successful. Chemistry distinguishes two leading sugars. That furnished by cane is found to be identical with that yielded by many other vegetables, such as certain trees of the palm family, the chestnut, the maple, Indian corn stalks, and many roots, of which the chief, in point of value, is the beet. The other sugar is contained in grapes, pears, apples, melons, and most kinds of fruit. This species of sugar (glucose) will not granulate or crystalize like that of cane; but it is made in considerable quantities |