The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Science
The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.
Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Botany, Economic
The number of sugar estates in operation in 1830, was 600. The manual
power employed on these plantations, was 36,091 slaves, 282
steam-engines, and 406 horse power. The capital invested being
estimated at 50 million dollars. In 1844 the estates had increased to
762, employing 50,670 slaves, 468 steam-engines, 354 horse power.
The sugar-cane is now cultivated on both branches of the Mississippi
from 57 miles below New Orleans to nearly 190 miles above. The whole
number of sugar houses in the State is 1,536, of which 865 employ
steam, and the rest horse power.
The crop of 1849-50 was 247,923 hhds. of 1,000 lbs., which, at an
average of 3½ cents., amounted to nearly 9½ million dollars. The
quantity of molasses produced was more than 12 million gallons, worth,
at 20 cents the gallon, about 2,400,000 dollars, giving a total value
of close upon 12 million dollars, or an average to each of the 1,455
working sugar houses of 8,148 dollars.
The overflow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers in 1850, shortened the
crop near 20,000 hhds., and was felt in subsequent years. Since 1846,
not less than 355 sugar mills and engines have been erected in this
State. The sugar crop of 1851-52 was 236,547 hhds., produced by 1,474
sugar houses, 914 of which were worked by steam, and the rest by
horse-power. Texas raises about 8,000 to 10,000 hhds. of sugar, and
Florida and Georgia smaller quantities.
In the year ending December, 1851, there were taken for consumption in
the United States about 132,832 tons of cane sugar, of which 120,599
were foreign imported. The quantity consumed in 1850 was 104,071 tons,
of which 65,089 was foreign.
_Production in Cuba_.--The average yearly production of sugar in Cuba
has been, in the five years from 1846 to 1850, 18,690,560 arrobas,
equal to 467,261,500 lbs., or 292,031 hhds. of 1,600 lbs. weight. The
crop of 1851 was estimated at twenty-one and a-half million arrobas,
equal to about 335,937 West India hhds. Thus, the increase from 1836
to 1841, has been as 29 per cent.; from 1841 to 1846, as 25 per cent.;
and from 1846 to 1851, as 45 per cent. A portion of sugar is also
smuggled out, to evade the export duty, and by some this is set down
as high as a fourth of the foregoing amounts.
In the three years ending 1841, the exports of the whole island were
2,227,624 boxes; in the three years ending 1844, 2,716,319 boxes; in
the three years ending with 1847, 2,805,530 boxes.
Between 1839 and 1847, the exports had risen from 500,000 to 1,000,000
boxes. The following table exhibits the quantity shipped from the
leading port of Havana, to different countries:--
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