From India it seems to have been carried by Alexander the Great to Asia Minor, for it is mentioned by Herodotus. In the time of the Crusades it was discovered in Syria, and the Venetians learned something about it when the Crusaders returned to Europe. The Spaniards introduced the Sugar-cane to the Canary Islands in 1470. Then the Dutch took it to Brazil, and when they were expelled from that country by the Portuguese they transferred their canes to the West Indian Islands. Our English islands, Barbados (1643) and Jamaica (1664), soon found the cultivation a very profitable undertaking.[128] [128] For full details see Watts, _Economic Dictionary of Products of India_; Muller, _Select Extra-tropical Plants_. The variations in price of sugar became in process of time of a very serious nature. In the year 1329 it is said that in Scotland a pound of sugar was worth one ounce of standard silver. But from 1780 to 1800 the price fell to 9d. The East Indian sugar began to compete with that from the West Indies about this time, but this was very soon crushed out by imposing a duty of £37 per cwt. The West Indies were then very flourishing, but even before this the fatal word _beet-sugar_ had already been heard. It was nothing at first but an interesting experiment by Professor Marcgraf in a German laboratory, who had extracted a little cane-sugar from beetroot in 1747. But in 1801 the beet was already in cultivation. Napoleon saw England's monopoly of the cane and judiciously encouraged the beet. The result of his far-seeing policy only became manifest a few years ago, for then the West Indian Islands, which we conquered and guarded against Napoleon at such fearful expense of blood and treasure, were almost worthless; Continental beet-sugar had ruined our colonial planters and our home refineries. It is in fact a most curious and interesting example of how a little judicious encouragement by a wise and far-seeing Government may destroy the profits of victory in a long, glorious, but yet ruinous war. CHAPTER XXII PLANTS AND ANTS Meaning of Plant Life--Captive and domesticated germs--Solomon's observations denied by Buffon but confirmed by recent writers--Ants as keepers and germinators of corn--Ant fields--Ants growing mushrooms--Leaf-cutting ants--Plants which are guarded by insects--The African bush--Ants boarded by Acacias and by Imbauba trees--Ants kept in China and Italy--Cockchafer _v._ ant--Scale insects--A fungus which catches worms. The world of plants supports all animal life, from the mite to the elephant. There are most intricate relations between one form of life and another. Thus a Rose tree attacked by an aphis or green-fly may be succoured by the slim ichneumon, or other thin-waisted fly, which lays its egg in that of the aphis. Another insect, say a spider, catches the ichneumon. A starling may eat the spider, and be itself eaten by an owl.