The value of sugar imported into the United States, is greater than that of any other single article of commerce.  In the year 1880 it appears that over one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine million pounds of sugar were brought here from other countries, at a cost of nearly one hundred and twenty million dollars, including customs duty.  Moreover, the consumption of sugar, per capita, in this country is rapidly increasing.  It was, during the ten years next preceding 1870, only 28 pounds on the average per annum, but, in the ten years next following, an average of 38 pounds per annum were consumed for each person of the population of this country.  This appears to be an increase of 35 per centum in ten years.

The subject of domestic cultivation of sugar bearing plants is, therefore, one of great importance to this nation, and it has accordingly engaged the attention of the U.S.  Commissioner of Agriculture, and many experiments have been made in different parts of the country in the propagation of the various canes, roots, etc., from which sugar can be made.  Among sugar-bearing plants, beside the regular sugar cane, are, sorghum, sugar beet, maple, watermelon, sweet and white potato, and corn stalk.

Statistics show that of the 12,000,000,000 pounds of sugar produced in the world, about three-fourths comes from the sugar cane, and the other fourth comes mainly from the sugar beet.  Of the total quantity, only about one seventieth is produced in the United States, and that is mainly cane sugar from Louisiana.  The beet sugar has formerly been mainly produced in Europe.  First France, second Germany, third Russia, then Belgium, Austria, Holland, Sweden, and Italy.

The consumption of sugar in Great Britain is much greater per capita than in the United States, about 65 pounds, or nearly double; while in Germany 19 pounds per annum are used on an average by each person, and in Russia the consumption is much less.

The importance of this subject to the United States, where the consumption of sugar is increasing out of ratio to the production of sugar-bearing plants, and where agricultural independence should be realized, as we have already attained and maintained political independence, and almost independence in manufacturing industries, has called out Mr. Lewis S. Ware, a member of the American Chemical Society, etc., in a pamphlet of over 60 pages, entitled a “Study of the Various Sources of Sugar.”

From this publication it appears that the main source of sugar supply must still be sucrose, cane sugar, even in spite of the best efforts of the general government and of the State agricultural organizations to introduce sugar-bearing plants that will thrive in the temperate and colder latitudes of this country.  With the single exception of the sugar beet, he seems to disparage all attempts to produce practical sugar from hardy plants, or those that will mature in the region of frosts in winter.  Even sorghum, that has for twenty years held a place in the hopes of the northern farmer, has declined so that the alleged production of half a million pounds in 1866 had became barely a twelfth of a million pounds in 1877.