SUGAR. The production of beet-sugar is an industry entirely of modern growth, taking root first in France during the reign of Napoleon I., and subsequently establishing itself after many difficulties in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Holland. the table shows the produce of beet-sugar in these countries in 1876.
France 420,000 tons.
Germany .320,000 " Austria and Hungary 50,000 " Russia 250,000 " Belgium 80,000 " Holland 30,000 " The development of this industry in Russia has been very rapid since 1864; but, on the other hand, it has been for some years on the decline in Austria, the produce (chiefly Bohemian) of that country having been as high as 180,000 tons of sugar in 1870. All other countries are as yet of minor importance as beet-growers; but in Sweden, Den mark, England at Lavenham, and California, beet-sugar factories have been established with promising results. Several attempts have been made within the last thirty years to make beet-sugar a profitable manufacture in Ireland, but none have as yet been quite successful. The following figures-show bow rapidly the beet-sugar manufacture has on the whole prospered. Total produce of all countries: 1853 ..... ....200,000 tons of sugar.
1863 452,000 • 1867.... 650,000 1876 r 1,154,200 •1 This large annual yield of 1k million tons has been maintained for some years, and forms about one fourth on the sugar now produced from all sources.
An acre of land planted with beet can be made without difficulty to yield at least a ton of sugar, worth from 1.:20 to 124, and there are certain by-products besides. The average percentage composition of the root of the sugar-beet is as follows: Sugar, 10k; fiber, etc.,
5; gluten, soluble organic compounds, and ash, 3; water, 814; But the proportion of sugar varies much—it being greater in small than in large beets, iu dry titan in moist climates, in light than in heavy soils, in the part of the root under than in that above ground, and manure has not been directly applied to the crop.
Crystallized sugar, although by far the most valuable, is not the only useful product of beet-root, as the following list of its products will show: (1) Crystallized sugar; (2) exhausted pulp useful for cattle food; (3) coarse spirit obtained by the uncrvstallizable sugar; (4) potash salts. The fibrous portion of the root is sometimes used to mix with other material for making paper.
The distillation of spirits from bed, is largely practiced in the continent, and many good judges maintain that it is really a more profitable business than the manufacture of beet-root sugar. In Belgium and Germany the two industries are frequently com bined, an arrangement which possesses the advantage that, in a season when the pro portion of sugar in the roots is too small to yield more than a bare profit, the manufact urer may ferment the juice. The spirit thus obtained yields a fair return even when the beets contain only from 5 to 6 per cent of sugar. This manufact ure has been tried in England with but little -success as yet; but there really seems no good reason why both sugar and'spirits should not be profitably made from beet either in England, Scotland, or Ireland.