CONCLUSION

The sugar crops of the world for the year 1915-16 aggregated 16,558,863 long tons, of which 10,571,079 tons were cane. The following table shows the production of the various countries:

From the time when the soldiers of Alexander of Macedon found sugar cane in India, over three hundred years before the Christian era, knowledge of sugar and its cultivation has accompanied great political movements.

In the sweep of the Saracen conquest from Persia to Egypt and on through northern Africa into Spain, sugar followed the footsteps of the invading armies. The Crusaders brought it with them when they returned home from Palestine. Daring Portuguese adventurers carried it to the Madeiras, the Azores, the Cape Verde and other islands of the east Atlantic ocean when they captured and colonized them in the fifteenth century. The New world received sugar cane at the hands of Christopher Columbus, who planted it in Santo Domingo in 1493. Shortly after Pizarro’s first landing it was brought to Peru by the Spanish conquerors. Cortés himself introduced it in Mexico, erecting the first mill there in 1520; and when, during the struggle between Great Britain and France, sugar was excluded from Europe by the blockading British fleet, it was Napoleon Bonaparte who called beet-sugar manufacture into being.

Before the outbreak of the great war in 1914, the world’s crops of sugar were pretty evenly divided between cane and beet, with a preponderance in favor of the former. How this titanic conflict has affected the European production is clearly seen by the returns for 1915-16. During that season the world’s output was 16,558,863 long tons, made up of 10,571,079 tons of cane and 5,987,784 tons of beet, and Europe was short 2,392,828 tons as compared with the previous year. The conclusion is inevitable that after the war shall be brought to an end a period of poverty and distress will ensue and restriction of sugar consumption in Europe will be one of the results of this condition.

Apart from countries where sugar production is fostered by protecting tariffs, it seems certain that future development andprogress will take place in lands where favorable climate, rich soil and adequate, cheap labor are found together. The natural economic law will cause the industry to thrive best where such conditions obtain in the fullest degree, and to fall off correspondingly as they diminish.

FOOTNOTES[1]This and seventeen illustrations immediately following are reproduced by permission of Truman G. Palmer, Esq., Secretary of the United States Beet Sugar Industry, Washington, D. C.[2]This and the three illustrations immediately following are after photographs by A. Moscioni, Esq.[3]This and the five illustrations immediately following are after photographs by the American Photo Co., Habana.[4]Spain.[5]Ed. Yule, II, 208-212.[6]Geschichte des Zuckers, p. 89.[7]Kazwini, I, 262.[8]610-641 A. D.[9]SeeGreece under the Romans, by George Finlay, LL.D., page 338; “The sixth campaign opened with the Roman army in the plains of Assyria, and after laying waste some of the largest provinces of the Persian empire, Heraclius marched through the country to the east of the Tigris and captured the palace of Dastargerd, where the Persian monarchs had accumulated the greater part of their enormous treasure in a position always regarded as secure from any foreign enemy.”[10]In Morocco.[11]Important village of the province of Kūzistān.[12]Latāif, page 107.[13]B. 571-D. 632 A. D.[14]Amr-ibn-el-Ass.[15]Marchpane, a sweetmeat made of sweet almonds and pounded sugar.[16]Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XII, p. 826, gives 1506 as date of introduction of sugar in Santo Domingo.Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XXVI, p. 44, says sugar carried to Santo Domingo in 1494.[17]Encyclopædia Britannica, XXII, p. 658.[18]O. S.[19]Quar. Jour. of Economics, Vol. XVII, p. 1.[20]The excess of import duty over the domestic revenue tax.[21]When exported, of course.[22]Roy G. Blakey, Ph. D.The United States Beet Sugar Industry and the Tariff, Columbia University, 1912.[23]Actual production in sugar.[24]Mark = 23.8 cents U. S. coin.[25]Ruble = 51 cents.[26]Pood = 36.07 pounds.[27]Six francs and five and one-half francs, respectively, per 100 kilograms.[28]Surface, G. T.,Story of Sugar, p. 115.[29]Hardwick Committee Hearings, 62nd Congress, 1st Session, p. 767.[30]Truman G. Palmer.[31]Blakey.[32]Professor George W. Shaw says, 1877:The California Industry, Sacramento, 1903, page 11.[33]Secretary of Agriculture, 61st Congress, 1st Session, Sen. Doc. 22, p. 8.[34]Closed.[35]Height of these mountains taken from U. S. Geodetic Survey, March, 1915.[36]Geerligs,World’s Cane Sugar Industry, p. 345.[37]Cleveland, Richard J.,Narrative of Voyages and Commercial Enterprises, Cambridge, 1843.[38]Anderson, Rufus,The Hawaiian Islands, Boston, 1864.[39]Jarves, James Jackson,History of the Sandwich Islands, Honolulu, 1872.[40]Overland Monthly, June, 1895, p. 620.[41]From what Mr. Noël Deerr, the sugar technologist at the Honolulu experiment station, writes on the subject, it would appear that Yellow Caledonia cane is identical with White Tanna. The three varieties of Tanna cane, the Striped, the White and the Black, are called after the island of that name, one of the Loyalty group, of which the most important is New Caledonia. All of the Tanna canes are cultivated extensively in Australia, and the White Tanna or Yellow Caledonia was brought to Hawaii from Queensland.Mr. W. P. Naquin, agriculturist of the H. S. P. A. experiment station, Honolulu, says: “Yellow Caledonia cane was first grown in the Kau district by manager George C. Hewitt of the Hutchinson Sugar company. The cane first came into prominence in the early nineties when Rose Bamboo, which had replaced Lahaina cane, began to show signs of deterioration. Yellow Caledonia, being a hardier cane than any of the varieties then grown, and therefore less susceptible to attack of leaf-hoppers and to prevalent diseases, soon gained favor in Kau, from which district it spread to Olaa and the Honokaa district. The introduction of Yellow Caledonia cane was, no doubt, a great help, if not the salvation of the Onomea Sugar company and the rest of the plantations in the island of Hawaii, which suffered so severely from leaf-hoppers and the deterioration of the Lahaina cane.”[42]Written in 1851.[43]Elected emperor of the Roman empire as Charles V.[44]U. S. War Department. Bureau of Insular Affairs, Washington, 12-16-14.[45]A survey under the Cadastral survey act, passed by the Philippine legislature in 1913,i. e., a survey of the land and assessment of its value as a basis for taxation would support a Torrens title.[46]Harold M. Pitt in his treatise,Reciprocity and the Philippine Islands, Manila, 1911, says that it is estimated that from 40,000 to 50,000 tons of sugar are consumed in the islands.[47]Walker, H. S.The Sugar Industry in the Island of Negros. Manila, 1910.[48]Prescott, in hisConquest of Mexico, (Vol. I, pp. 220et seq.), gives the following in connection with the discovery of the new world by Columbus:“Of the islands, Cuba was the second discovered; but no attempt had been made to plant a colony there during the life of Columbus, who, indeed, after skirting the whole extent of its southern coast, died in the conviction that it was part of the continent. At length, in 1511, Diego, the son and successor of the ‘Admiral,’ who still maintained the seat of government in Hispaniola, finding the mines much exhausted there, proposed to occupy the neighboring island of Cuba, or Fernandina, as it was called in compliment to the Spanish monarch. He prepared a small force for the conquest, which he placed under the command of Don Diego Velasquez. The conquest was effected without much bloodshed. After the conquest, Velasquez, now appointed governor, diligently occupied himself with measures for promoting the prosperity of the island. He formed a number of settlements and invited settlers by liberal grants of land and slaves. He encouraged them to cultivate the soil and gave particular attention to the sugar cane.”[49]25.317 lbs. = 1arroba.[50]Acaballeríais generally taken to mean 33⅓ acres.[51]See Report of E. E. Paxton, Honolulu, T. H., 1905.[52]Extremely high prices are paid only in districts where the number of sugar mills is unusually large and the competition for cane consequently very keen. For example, if a central needed 200,000 tons of cane in order to grind at full capacity during the season, and if its own cane and that which it had already purchased amounted to 175,000 tons, it might pay an excessive price for the remaining 25,000 tons. There is, however, no such thing as uniformity in the contracts made with colonos, except that the price is based on weight and not on sugar content.[53]A well-known authority on sugar culture states that ratoons constitute about 90 per cent of the Cuban crop, and that it takes twelve months for ratoons to ripen.Primavera, or cane planted in the spring, is cut when twelve months old, andcaña fria, or cane planted in the fall, is cut when it is between fourteen and eighteen months old. The industry has been greatly extended during 1915 and 1916, and consequently much new planting has been done. These plantings will be ratooned after the first crop is taken off.[54]Geerligs, p. 177.[55]On December 16, 1914, Willett & Gray gave the average as between 2,250,000 and 2,500,000, to which the recent new plantings must be added.[56]Journal, Society of Chemical Industry, Vol. XXV, pp. 161et seq.[57]Prinsen Geerligs says that the average yield is 50,000 arrobas per caballería, or 16.82 long tons per acre, but that a good crop gives 80,000 arrobas (26.92 long tons per acre) and sometimes 100,000 arrobas per caballería (33.65 long tons per acre) or even more are obtained.[58]The United States Beet Sugar Industry and the Tariff.Blakey, p. 179.[59]This is not true of the years 1915 and 1916, when on account of the war Great Britain, France and other European countries have been compelled to draw large quantities of sugar from Cuba and the United States.[60]Ten years’ war.[61]Hurricane.[62]Internal disturbances.[63]Rebellion against Spain. Spanish-American war.[64]Great drought.[65]Particularly favorable weather.[66]Great drought.[67]Estimated.[68]Estimated.[69]Estimated.[70]Estimated.[71]Britannicasays 1860.[72]Vol. III, pp. 356-318 (Dana Estes & Co.’s edition).[73]Portuguese settlement at the mouth of the Canton river.[74]Chancacais made by boiling the cane juice in open pans to the consistency of massecuite, then running it into moulds about six inches in diameter and allowing it to cool.[75]These figures based upon Brazilian milreis, paper, being worth 1s. 4d. stg.[76]A sugar solution of 31 degrees Baumé contains 56.2 per cent sucrose.[77]Trashing is the stripping of dried leaves from the cane.[78]Estimated.[79]Century Atlas—A recent private report (1915) gives 1,856,254 sq. miles.[80]All figures given in dollars and cents are United States money.[81]16 centavos, paper, per kilogram, or 7¼ cents per pound.[82]Estimated.[83]Since the foregoing was written Formosa’s production has passed the 300,000-ton mark, as will be seen by the table on page 281.[84]Asiatic trade wind.[85]Geerligs.[86]Formed by France out of the Netherlands in 1795. It existed until 1806.[87]Estimated.[88]Estimated.[89]Estimated.[90]Estimated.[91]Estimated.[92]From 10 to 15 pounds in weight.[93]Willett & Gray, January 13, 1916.

FOOTNOTES

[1]This and seventeen illustrations immediately following are reproduced by permission of Truman G. Palmer, Esq., Secretary of the United States Beet Sugar Industry, Washington, D. C.

[2]This and the three illustrations immediately following are after photographs by A. Moscioni, Esq.

[3]This and the five illustrations immediately following are after photographs by the American Photo Co., Habana.

[4]Spain.

[5]Ed. Yule, II, 208-212.

[6]Geschichte des Zuckers, p. 89.

[7]Kazwini, I, 262.

[8]610-641 A. D.

[9]SeeGreece under the Romans, by George Finlay, LL.D., page 338; “The sixth campaign opened with the Roman army in the plains of Assyria, and after laying waste some of the largest provinces of the Persian empire, Heraclius marched through the country to the east of the Tigris and captured the palace of Dastargerd, where the Persian monarchs had accumulated the greater part of their enormous treasure in a position always regarded as secure from any foreign enemy.”

[10]In Morocco.

[11]Important village of the province of Kūzistān.

[12]Latāif, page 107.

[13]B. 571-D. 632 A. D.

[14]Amr-ibn-el-Ass.

[15]Marchpane, a sweetmeat made of sweet almonds and pounded sugar.

[16]Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XII, p. 826, gives 1506 as date of introduction of sugar in Santo Domingo.Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XXVI, p. 44, says sugar carried to Santo Domingo in 1494.

[17]Encyclopædia Britannica, XXII, p. 658.

[18]O. S.

[19]Quar. Jour. of Economics, Vol. XVII, p. 1.

[20]The excess of import duty over the domestic revenue tax.

[21]When exported, of course.

[22]Roy G. Blakey, Ph. D.The United States Beet Sugar Industry and the Tariff, Columbia University, 1912.

[23]Actual production in sugar.

[24]Mark = 23.8 cents U. S. coin.

[25]Ruble = 51 cents.

[26]Pood = 36.07 pounds.

[27]Six francs and five and one-half francs, respectively, per 100 kilograms.

[28]Surface, G. T.,Story of Sugar, p. 115.

[29]Hardwick Committee Hearings, 62nd Congress, 1st Session, p. 767.

[30]Truman G. Palmer.

[31]Blakey.

[32]Professor George W. Shaw says, 1877:The California Industry, Sacramento, 1903, page 11.

[33]Secretary of Agriculture, 61st Congress, 1st Session, Sen. Doc. 22, p. 8.

[34]Closed.

[35]Height of these mountains taken from U. S. Geodetic Survey, March, 1915.

[36]Geerligs,World’s Cane Sugar Industry, p. 345.

[37]Cleveland, Richard J.,Narrative of Voyages and Commercial Enterprises, Cambridge, 1843.

[38]Anderson, Rufus,The Hawaiian Islands, Boston, 1864.

[39]Jarves, James Jackson,History of the Sandwich Islands, Honolulu, 1872.

[40]Overland Monthly, June, 1895, p. 620.

[41]From what Mr. Noël Deerr, the sugar technologist at the Honolulu experiment station, writes on the subject, it would appear that Yellow Caledonia cane is identical with White Tanna. The three varieties of Tanna cane, the Striped, the White and the Black, are called after the island of that name, one of the Loyalty group, of which the most important is New Caledonia. All of the Tanna canes are cultivated extensively in Australia, and the White Tanna or Yellow Caledonia was brought to Hawaii from Queensland.Mr. W. P. Naquin, agriculturist of the H. S. P. A. experiment station, Honolulu, says: “Yellow Caledonia cane was first grown in the Kau district by manager George C. Hewitt of the Hutchinson Sugar company. The cane first came into prominence in the early nineties when Rose Bamboo, which had replaced Lahaina cane, began to show signs of deterioration. Yellow Caledonia, being a hardier cane than any of the varieties then grown, and therefore less susceptible to attack of leaf-hoppers and to prevalent diseases, soon gained favor in Kau, from which district it spread to Olaa and the Honokaa district. The introduction of Yellow Caledonia cane was, no doubt, a great help, if not the salvation of the Onomea Sugar company and the rest of the plantations in the island of Hawaii, which suffered so severely from leaf-hoppers and the deterioration of the Lahaina cane.”

Mr. W. P. Naquin, agriculturist of the H. S. P. A. experiment station, Honolulu, says: “Yellow Caledonia cane was first grown in the Kau district by manager George C. Hewitt of the Hutchinson Sugar company. The cane first came into prominence in the early nineties when Rose Bamboo, which had replaced Lahaina cane, began to show signs of deterioration. Yellow Caledonia, being a hardier cane than any of the varieties then grown, and therefore less susceptible to attack of leaf-hoppers and to prevalent diseases, soon gained favor in Kau, from which district it spread to Olaa and the Honokaa district. The introduction of Yellow Caledonia cane was, no doubt, a great help, if not the salvation of the Onomea Sugar company and the rest of the plantations in the island of Hawaii, which suffered so severely from leaf-hoppers and the deterioration of the Lahaina cane.”

[42]Written in 1851.

[43]Elected emperor of the Roman empire as Charles V.

[44]U. S. War Department. Bureau of Insular Affairs, Washington, 12-16-14.

[45]A survey under the Cadastral survey act, passed by the Philippine legislature in 1913,i. e., a survey of the land and assessment of its value as a basis for taxation would support a Torrens title.

[46]Harold M. Pitt in his treatise,Reciprocity and the Philippine Islands, Manila, 1911, says that it is estimated that from 40,000 to 50,000 tons of sugar are consumed in the islands.

[47]Walker, H. S.The Sugar Industry in the Island of Negros. Manila, 1910.

[48]Prescott, in hisConquest of Mexico, (Vol. I, pp. 220et seq.), gives the following in connection with the discovery of the new world by Columbus:“Of the islands, Cuba was the second discovered; but no attempt had been made to plant a colony there during the life of Columbus, who, indeed, after skirting the whole extent of its southern coast, died in the conviction that it was part of the continent. At length, in 1511, Diego, the son and successor of the ‘Admiral,’ who still maintained the seat of government in Hispaniola, finding the mines much exhausted there, proposed to occupy the neighboring island of Cuba, or Fernandina, as it was called in compliment to the Spanish monarch. He prepared a small force for the conquest, which he placed under the command of Don Diego Velasquez. The conquest was effected without much bloodshed. After the conquest, Velasquez, now appointed governor, diligently occupied himself with measures for promoting the prosperity of the island. He formed a number of settlements and invited settlers by liberal grants of land and slaves. He encouraged them to cultivate the soil and gave particular attention to the sugar cane.”

[48]Prescott, in hisConquest of Mexico, (Vol. I, pp. 220et seq.), gives the following in connection with the discovery of the new world by Columbus:

“Of the islands, Cuba was the second discovered; but no attempt had been made to plant a colony there during the life of Columbus, who, indeed, after skirting the whole extent of its southern coast, died in the conviction that it was part of the continent. At length, in 1511, Diego, the son and successor of the ‘Admiral,’ who still maintained the seat of government in Hispaniola, finding the mines much exhausted there, proposed to occupy the neighboring island of Cuba, or Fernandina, as it was called in compliment to the Spanish monarch. He prepared a small force for the conquest, which he placed under the command of Don Diego Velasquez. The conquest was effected without much bloodshed. After the conquest, Velasquez, now appointed governor, diligently occupied himself with measures for promoting the prosperity of the island. He formed a number of settlements and invited settlers by liberal grants of land and slaves. He encouraged them to cultivate the soil and gave particular attention to the sugar cane.”

[49]25.317 lbs. = 1arroba.

[50]Acaballeríais generally taken to mean 33⅓ acres.

[51]See Report of E. E. Paxton, Honolulu, T. H., 1905.

[52]Extremely high prices are paid only in districts where the number of sugar mills is unusually large and the competition for cane consequently very keen. For example, if a central needed 200,000 tons of cane in order to grind at full capacity during the season, and if its own cane and that which it had already purchased amounted to 175,000 tons, it might pay an excessive price for the remaining 25,000 tons. There is, however, no such thing as uniformity in the contracts made with colonos, except that the price is based on weight and not on sugar content.

[53]A well-known authority on sugar culture states that ratoons constitute about 90 per cent of the Cuban crop, and that it takes twelve months for ratoons to ripen.Primavera, or cane planted in the spring, is cut when twelve months old, andcaña fria, or cane planted in the fall, is cut when it is between fourteen and eighteen months old. The industry has been greatly extended during 1915 and 1916, and consequently much new planting has been done. These plantings will be ratooned after the first crop is taken off.

[54]Geerligs, p. 177.

[55]On December 16, 1914, Willett & Gray gave the average as between 2,250,000 and 2,500,000, to which the recent new plantings must be added.

[56]Journal, Society of Chemical Industry, Vol. XXV, pp. 161et seq.

[57]Prinsen Geerligs says that the average yield is 50,000 arrobas per caballería, or 16.82 long tons per acre, but that a good crop gives 80,000 arrobas (26.92 long tons per acre) and sometimes 100,000 arrobas per caballería (33.65 long tons per acre) or even more are obtained.

[58]The United States Beet Sugar Industry and the Tariff.Blakey, p. 179.

[59]This is not true of the years 1915 and 1916, when on account of the war Great Britain, France and other European countries have been compelled to draw large quantities of sugar from Cuba and the United States.

[60]Ten years’ war.

[61]Hurricane.

[62]Internal disturbances.

[63]Rebellion against Spain. Spanish-American war.

[64]Great drought.

[65]Particularly favorable weather.

[66]Great drought.

[67]Estimated.

[68]Estimated.

[69]Estimated.

[70]Estimated.

[71]Britannicasays 1860.

[72]Vol. III, pp. 356-318 (Dana Estes & Co.’s edition).

[73]Portuguese settlement at the mouth of the Canton river.

[74]Chancacais made by boiling the cane juice in open pans to the consistency of massecuite, then running it into moulds about six inches in diameter and allowing it to cool.

[75]These figures based upon Brazilian milreis, paper, being worth 1s. 4d. stg.

[76]A sugar solution of 31 degrees Baumé contains 56.2 per cent sucrose.

[77]Trashing is the stripping of dried leaves from the cane.

[78]Estimated.

[79]Century Atlas—A recent private report (1915) gives 1,856,254 sq. miles.

[80]All figures given in dollars and cents are United States money.

[81]16 centavos, paper, per kilogram, or 7¼ cents per pound.

[82]Estimated.

[83]Since the foregoing was written Formosa’s production has passed the 300,000-ton mark, as will be seen by the table on page 281.

[84]Asiatic trade wind.

[85]Geerligs.

[86]Formed by France out of the Netherlands in 1795. It existed until 1806.

[87]Estimated.

[88]Estimated.

[89]Estimated.

[90]Estimated.

[91]Estimated.

[92]From 10 to 15 pounds in weight.

[93]Willett & Gray, January 13, 1916.

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