nd tannin by
giving a black coloration or precipitate with persulphate of iron.

An experienced sugar dealer easily judges of the value of sugar by the
taste, smell, specific gravity, moisture and general appearance.

The value of molasses may be determined by drying at 220 degs., and by
the taste.

The commercial demand for sugar is mainly supplied from the juice of
the cane, which contains it in greater quantity and purity than any
other plant, and offers the greatest facilities for its extraction.

Although sugar, identical in its character, exists in the maple, the
coco-nut, maize, the beet root, and mango, and is economically
obtained from these to a considerable extent, yet it is not
sufficiently pure to admit of ready separation from the foreign matter
combined with it, at least by the simple mechanical means, the
ordinary producers usually have at command; unless carried onto a
large extent, and with suitable machinery and chemical knowledge and
appliances.

The different species of commercial sugar usually met with in this
country, are four, viz:--brown, or muscovado sugar (commonly called
moist sugar); clayed sugar, refined or loaf sugar, and sugar candy;
these varieties are altogether dependent on the difference in the
methods employed in their manufacture.

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
tra