See quotations.
1883. In the Far West, as Down East, sugar bears the name of long and short sweetening, according as it is the product of the cane (known also as store-sugar) or of the maple tree.—‘Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica,’ i. 199/2, ‘Americanisms.’ (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1904. Only cornbread, peas, and sorghum were plentiful. The latter took the place of molasses, and at the same time was known as “long sweetening.”—J. H. Claiborne, ‘Seventy-Five Years in Old Virginia,’ p. 201.
