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Show 46 STEPPES AND DESERTS. tinguished at a great distance from a field of the common cane. The sugar-cane of Tahiti was first described by Cook and George l<'orster, who appear, however, from the excellent memoir of the latter upon the edible plants of the islands of the Pacific, to have been but little acquainted with its valuable qualities. Bougainville brought it to the Isle of France, from whence it was com·eyed to Cayenne, and since 1792 it has been taken to Martinique, Hayti, and several of the smaller West Indian Islands. It was carried with the bread-fruit tree to Jamaica by the brave but unfortunate Captain Bligh, and was introduced from the Island of Trinidad to the neighboring coast of Caraccas, where it became a more important acquisition than the bread-fruit, which is never likely to supersede a plant so valuable, and affording so large an amount of sustenance, as the plantain. The Tahitian sugar-cane is much richer in juice than the common cane, said to be originally a native of the east of Asia. On an equal surface of ground, it yields a third more sugar than the Cafia criolla, which has a thinner stalk and smaller joints. As, moreover, the West Indian islands begin to suffer great want of fuel, (in Cuba the wood of the orange tree is used for sugar boiling,) the thicker and more woody stalk of the Tahitian cane is an important advantage. If the introduction of this plant had not taken place almost at the same time as the commencement of the bloody negro war in St. Domingo, the prices of sugar in Europe would have risen still higher than they did, in consequence of the ruinous effects of those troubles on agriculture and trade. It was an important question, whether the cane of the Pacific, when removed from its native soil, would gradually degenerate and become the same as the common cane. Experience hitherto has decided against any such degeneration. In Cuba, a caballcria (nearly 33 English acres) planted with Tahitian sugar-cane produces 870 hundred weight of sugar. It is singular that this important production of the islands of the Pacific is only cultivated in those parts of the Spanish colonies whidt are farthest from the Pacific. The P&uvian coast is only twenty-five days' sail from Tahiti, and yet, at the period of my travels in Peru and Chili, the Tahitian cane was unknown there. The inhabitants of Easter Island, who suffer much from deficiency of fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-cane, and (a |
