OCR Text |
Show Sutjar in Spain. ' Tho Journal des Fabricants do Sucre states that, among tho countries in which the production of beet sugar in taking a great development, Spain has to bo mentioned. The sugar industry is not a new one in Spain, for it appears that in tho fourteenth century no less than 20,000 hectares were under the sugar cane, chiefly in the provincoa of , Malaga, Almeria, and Grenada, and tho f , production was then stated to bo 200,- O00 tons. In this, however, there must lia"0 been some error, and it is not likely like-ly that tho cane in Spain yielded moro than iu tho West Indies, and, on the averago yield there, the production of 20,000 hectares would not have been likely to exceed 120.000 tons of sugav. After tho expulsion of the Moors, their great irrigation works fell into decay, and tho country altogether went stoadi-ly stoadi-ly backwards for a couple of centuries. " Tho sugar cane. It is said, now covers only 0,800 hectares, instead of 20,000 hectares. Tho sugar' zone -finds amore orlesi narrow band following tho coast from Gibraltar to tho neighborhood of Almeria, nnd the centres of production are Grenada, Mortil, and Malaga. In 1890 tho eighteen enno sugar factories of theValloy of Mortil worked 170,000 tons of cane and extracted 17,000 tone of sunlit. Tho growers, however, lfave gone through a series of bad crops; tho cano sufl'ored often from frost, and last year tho production of sugar was only -C,000 tons. In addttion to this, Spanish colonial cane sugar, under tho national (flag, has been admitted freo of duty into in-to the peninsula since 1881, and all these circumstances contribute todis I .courage tho producers of cane sugar. |