Maria Doyle, age 12, of Jamestown, N.Y., for her question:
WHERE DID SUGAR CANE FIRST GROW?
Sugar cane is a tall grass plant that grows in tropical and semitropical countries. Stalks from the plant contain large amounts of sugary juice from which sugar and syrup are made. Sugar cane first grew in India. Since ancient times it has been cultivated in India and China.
After the Crusades, travelers brought sugar cane to Europe. Then during the 1500s colonizers brought it to America and the West Indies.
Today India still remains the world's leading sugar cane growing nation in the world. Other leading countries include Brazil, Cuba, China, Mexico, the United States and Pakistan.
Hawaii, Louisiana and Florida rate as the chief United States sugar cane producers today.
Sugar cane stalks grow to be 7 to 15 feet high and about two inches in diameter. These stalks grow from a thick, solid rootstock. The many stalks have no branches but have long and narrow leaves which are arranged in two rows. The stalk is divided into several sections, like a bamboo cane. These sections are called internodes. Each node bears a small bud which looks much like a potato eye. The color of the stem varies from yellow to red.
The best soil for sugar cane is a fertile soil that can hold a large amount of moisture. The plant needs much water to grow and plants must be irrigated in regions where there isn't adequate rainfall.
The world's richest crops of sugar cane came from Hawaiian plantations. The soils of the Hawaiian Islands are rich in lime, potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen. In addition, there is lots of rain.
Sugar cane is grown chiefly from stem cuttings. Furrows from five to seven feet apart are dug in the field and the cuttings are laid horizontally in the furrows. Some planters use only the upper part or the matured part of the cane. Others use the entire cane.
A short time after planting, the buds on the nodes swell and burst and young stalks of cane emerge from the soil.
A few weeks after the new sugar cane plants have emerged, leaves appear and nodes and internodes develop on the stalks.
In Hawaii and Louisiana, machines are used to cut off the cane stalks at harvest time. But in most other sugar cane growing areas, workers cut the cane by hand.
Each cutter uses a large steel knive which has a blade five inches wide and 18 inches long, with a hook on the back. As the cutters move down the rows, they cut the cane close to the ground, strip off the leaves with the hook and cut off the top of the stalk at the last matured joint.
The cut stalks are thrown into heaps called windrows and then gathered up into carts or narrow gauged railway cars that take them to the sugar factory. The stubble left in the field produces two or three crops in Louisiana and five to ten crops in tropic regions.
Sugar beet is grown for the sugar that is obtained from its roots. It is a biennial plant that takes two years to mature. In ancient times, the sugar beet grew wild in Asia and was cultivated in North Africa and southern Europe.