The cultivation of the sugar cane, and the manufacture of sugar, were introduced into Europe from the East, by the Saracens, soon after their conquests, in the ninth century.  It is stated by the Venetian historians, that their countrymen imported sugar from Sicily, in the twelfth century, at a cheaper rate than they could obtain it from Egypt, where it was then extensively made.  The first plantations in Spain were at Valencia; but they were extended to Granada, Mercia, Portugal, Madeira, and the Canary Islands, as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century.  From Gomera, one of these islands, the sugar cane was introduced into the West Indies, by Columbus, in his second voyage to America in 1493.  It was cultivated to some extent in St. Domingo in 1506, where it succeeded better than in any of the other islands.  In 1518, there were twenty-eight plantations in that colony, established by the Spaniards, where an abundance of sugar was made, which, for a long period, formed the principal part of the European supplies.  Barbados, the oldest English settlement in the West Indies, began to export sugar in 1646, and as far back as the year 1676 the trade required four hundred vessels, averaging one hundred and fifty tons burden.

The common sugar cane is a perennial plant, very sensitive to cold, and is, therefore, restricted in its cultivation to regions bordering on the tropics, where there is little or no frost.  In the Eastern hemisphere its production is principally confined to situations favorable to its growth, lying between the fortieth parallel of north latitude and a corresponding degree south.  On the Atlantic side of the Western continent, it will not thrive beyond the thirty-third degree of north latitude and the thirty-fifth parallel south.  On the Pacific side it will perfect its growth some five degrees further north or south.  From the flexibility of this plant, it is highly probable that it is gradually becoming more hardy, and will eventually endure an exposure and yield a profitable return much further north, along the borders of the Mississippi and some of its tributaries, than it has hitherto been produced.  In most parts of Louisiana the canes yield three crops from one planting.  The first season is denominated “plant cane,” and each of the subsequent growths, “ratoons.”  But, sometimes, as on the prairies of Attakapas and Opelousas, and the higher northern range of its cultivation, it requires to be replanted every year.  Within the tropics, as in the West Indies and elsewhere, the ratoons frequently continue to yield abundantly for twelve or fifteen years from the same roots.

The cultivation of this plant is principally confined to the West Indies, Venezuela, Brazil, Mauritius, British India, China, Japan, the Sunda, Phillippine, and Sandwich Islands, and to the southern districts of the United States.  The varieties most cultivated in the latter are the striped blue and yellow ribbon, or Java, the red ribbon, violet, from Java, the Creole, crystalline or Malabar, the Otaheite, the purple, the yellow, the purple-banded, and the grey canes.  The quantity of sugar produced on an acre varies from five hundred to three thousand pounds, averaging, perhaps, from eight hundred to one thousand pounds.