The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

SUGAR IN VEGETABLES.

71

them, and although the system may become so accustomed to the influence of the alcohol mixed in them as
not to be in all cases, in their moderate use, positively
or perceptibly injurious, still their habitual employment
is useful or injurious in just the proportion as their
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are organized as they
came from the grain, or disorganized by fermentation.
Sugar in the Sap of Trees.
Sugar is circulated in the sap of trees and plants just
before the unfolding of the buds; and in some species,
as the birch and maple, is then found in such quantities
as to be collected and manufactured in large quantities.
The sap of the birch is collected in the spring in Scotland, and fermented, and thus birch wine is manufactured; and in the northern part of the New England
States and New York sugar is annually manufactured
from the sugar maple to the amount of hundreds of tons.
Vegetables and Fruits, and roots also, contain sugar,
and can be fermented into intoxicating beverages; and
from some, as the beet and mangel-wurzel, large quantities of sugar are manufactured, especially in France.
The Huge Grasses, as the sugar cane and sorghum,
contain it, however, in the largest proportions, and are
the principal sources of its supply. Treacle or molasses is that portion of the sugar which will not crystallize, and which is therefore separated by draining
from the brown sugar before it is purified, andis not
objectionable as carbonaceous nutriment.