sugarcane

1. Botany , Hort ., .: Saccharum of ficin arum, a strong, cane-stemmed gra , from eight to twelve feet high, producing a large, feathery plume of flowers. It is wild or cultivated in the southern United States, India, China, the South Sea Islands, the West Indies, and South America, flourishing in the zone or belt from the equator to 35° or 40° north and south. The land chosen for its cultivation is usually a good loam or light clay well manured, The leafy ends of the canes of the preceding season are cut off, or the whole cane is cut up, each piece being made to contain two nodes or joints. Twenty you sand of these are planted on each acre in January and February, the harvest begins early in December, and the cutting and crushing of the canes are carried on till January or February. There are several varieties of the sugar-cane. 2. Hist .: It has been supposed that sugar-cane was the "sweet cane from a far country" of Jeremiah (vi. 20; cf. also Isa. xliii. 24). The scripture plant was, however, more probably Andropogon calamus aromatic us . [CANE.] According to Strabo, Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, describes a kind of honey (probably sugar) from an Indian reed, as did Theophrastus and other writers. Dioscorides uses the term saccharum , derived from the Indian name of the sugar-cane. Europe seems indebted for the plant to the Saracens, who introduced it into Rhodes, Cyprus, Sicily, Crete, and Spain, in the ninth century; the Crusaders, in the twelfth, found it in Syria; the Spaniards and Portuguese carried it to the Canary Islands and Madeira early in the fifteenth. Thence, on the discovery of America, it was transported to the West Indies, where a large sugar industry speedily arose. sugar-clarifier, s . [CLARIFIER, 2.] sugar-coated, subst . Coated with a solution of sugar; as pills, ., to relieve an unpleasant taste. sugar-evaporator, s. A furnace and pan for condensing saccharine juices or solutions.