sugar[N].” Strong as is the analogy between starch and gum, yet diastase does not convert gum into sugar; the one being as completely soluble as the other, its intervention is clearly unnecessary. Neither does it act on sugar. It is found, and exerts its powers, only where it is required. Nor does it come into play one moment before the necessity for it occurs. While the potatoe is in its state of winter repose, and no vegetative process going on, the elements of which the diastase is formed, are equally quiescent, but no sooner does the season recur when an augmented temperature rouses the slumbering energy of the tuber, than this potent principle exhibits its efficacy, and changes the insoluble starch into the nutritious sugar. Who, that can read, or reading reflect and ponder on these things, but must conclude that the laws which regulate the whole actions were impressed upon their subjects by a Creator infinite in design, in wisdom, and in power? If such insight into his doings are permitted to us now, what may we not hope for when we no longer “see as through a glass darkly[O]?”

The insolubility of the starch in cold water, affords a convenient means of separating the flour from the other materials, by which it may be abstracted from the tubers when in the greatest abundance, and be preserved unchanged for the use of man. This is done by simply rasping down the potatoes over a seirce, and passing a current of water over the raspings. The water passes through the seirce milky from the starch suspended in it. The starch is allowed to fall to the bottom, and is two or three times washed with pure water; it is then allowed to dry[P]. If this process be followed in the winter months, when the quantity of starch is greatest, the result is, a sixth portion of the weight of the potatoes employed, in a condition fit not only for immediate use, but capable of preservation for years. “To those who live solely, or even principally, on potatoes, it must be of immense importance to have the nutritious part preserved when in its greatest perfection, instead of leaving it exposed to injury, decomposition, or decay[Q].”

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the sources of starch and its obvious utility to mankind. Previous to its being consumed by the plant in which it is amassed, it is by various means, but chiefly by diastase, transformed into sugar. Following this natural transition, I shall next consider sugar as an article of diet. In temperate climates, sugar is regarded as a luxury, one indeed which is nearly indispensable, but in tropical countries it is a universal article of subsistence, partly as real sugar, and partly, and more generally, as it occurs in the cane. It is inconceivable what enormous quantities of the sugar-cane is consumed in this way; vast ship-loads arrive daily in the market at Manilla, and in Rio Janiero; in the Sandwich Islands and other places, every child is seen going about with a portion of sugar-cane in the hand. It has been called “the most perfect alimentary substance in nature,” and the results, in the appearance of the negroes, during the cane-harvest, notwithstanding the increased severe toils of that season, seem to confirm the statement. They almost invariably become plump, and sleek, and scarcely take any other food while the harvest lasts; even the sickly revive, and often recover their health.

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

The fertility and productiveness of the sugar-cane is immense, second only to the sago-palms. “The first sugar-canes planted with care on a virgin soil, yield a harvest during twenty to twenty-five years, after which they must be replanted every three years.” In the island of Cuba, instances are known of a sugar-plantation existing for forty-five years. To procure new plants, the tedious process of sowing seeds is not necessary. The practice is followed of taking cuttings, and the stools, or scions, which spring from the joints (nodi) of the old plant, are fit to be separated in fourteen days; these, in the course of a year, are so well grown that they may be cut down, and submitted to the sugar-mill. An English acre under culture for sugar, in Java, yields 1285 pounds avoirdupois of refined sugar, and the produce at Cuba is nearly the same.

Let not the thought arise, on the perusal of these statements, that the gifts of Providence are distributed with partiality, as nothing could be more unfounded. Independent of the destruction of the plantations which tropical hurricanes so often occasion, an insect of the locust