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Damn, that's a lot of sugar. Everything else seems to be sold in "reasonable" amounts, why is the sugar so out of proportion?
Poundful of sugar helps the medicine go down
I'm assuming that's the wholesale price. I can't imagine a single family buying 10 lbs at a time.
I can, given that most families did a hell of a lot more baking/cooking themselves instead of going to restaurants, buying processed food, etc.
Edit: plus, I forgot about making their own preserves and canning food, both of which require a fair bit of sugar, too.
Preserving fruits for winter was what came to my mind.
Explains all the sugarcane farms
Well, lots of demand for an extended period of time (ie centuries), plus a crop that grew well in areas that didn't take to traditional cash crops, and sugar was relatively easy to process into a form that shipped well even back in the Age of Sail (molasses and rum).
Frankly, there are a lot of reasons that sugar cane was a popular crop.