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this commodity, a position they retained for centuries. But during the 

 past thirty or forty years, cane sugar has found a strong competitor in 

 beet sugar. Now, Germany stands at the head of the sugar producing 

 nations, and the beet furnishes the principal portion of the sugar on the 

 market. This position has not been attained through the superiority of 

 the beet as a sugar producing plant --for it is more difficult to manu- 

 facture sugar from it than from the cane but through the energy, 

 perseverance, and almost endless work of men of science. 



In 1747, Marggraf, a German chemist, the director of the Academy 

 of Science at Berlin, discovered sugar in different members of the beet 

 family. His pupil and successor, Karl Achard, built in 1799 the first 

 beet sugar factory near Berlin. He spent a fortune and a large portion 

 of his time in developing the industry, and he may be said to be the 

 father of it. Shortly before Achard's death, Napoleon I. placed such 

 restrictions on the importation of sugar into the continent of Europe that 

 at one time it reached the price of about 75 cents a pound. In addition 

 to this import tax he compelled farmers to plant a definite area with sugar 

 beets, and in other ways assisted the beet sugar industry. It flourished 

 for a time, but appeared to be almost dead, especially in Germany, after 

 these favourable legislations were removed. However, improved 

 methods of manufacture and a careful attention to the cultivation 

 of the beet, together with reduced prices in other farm crops, have 

 made it an industry which, instead of receiving a bounty, pays a hand- 

 some revenue to the state in the form of an excise duty. 



It is largely to the promoters of the beet sugar industry that we are 

 indebted for the great reduction in the price of sugar. They have placed 

 it within the reach ot all, and transformed the luxury of yesterday into 

 the necessity of life of to-day. They have also revolutionized the cane 

 sugar industry an industry which, although perhaps a hundred times 

 as old as its young rival, still looks to it for instruction. 



The plant from which sugar was almost exclusively made till the 

 introduction of the sugar beet is the sugar cane, Saccharum offi.ci?iarum. 

 It is a plant which in appearance is not unlike Indian corn. The stalk 

 is from one to two inches in diameter at its base, and generally from 

 five to eight feet in height, although occasionally, especially in the more 

 southern countries, it reaches fully double that length. The colour varies 



