BEET SUGAR. 



Since the close of our civil war the cultivation of the sugar-cane and 

 the manufacture of sugar therefrom has nearly ceased to be an industry 

 of our country. Nearly all the sugar now produced is from the maple, 

 which is limited in quantity. The attempt to separate and crystallize 

 the sugar of the sorghum cane on a large scale has been wholly unsuc- 

 cessful, and as a sacchariferous plant it is only valuable for the manufac- 

 ture of molasses. 



In view of these considerations, and also that neither the Southern 

 States nor Cuba have resumed the production of sugar, the manufacture 

 of this article from beets must become a national industrj r . It has 

 already excited considerable attention in the United States during the 

 last ten years. The discovery that sugar can be produced from the beet 

 at less cost than from the cane, was made in seventeen hundred and 

 forty-seven, by a German chemist, but it was only in seventeen hundred 

 and ninety-six, after many trials, that several factories came into suc- 

 cessful operation. 



The first manufactory of beet sugar on a large scale was in successful 

 operation in Silesia (Germany) in eighteen hundred and five. Owing to 

 the disturbed state of Europe at that period, no further progress was 

 made until eighteen hundred and twelve, when the First Napoleon en- 

 forced this industry in France, where it was demonstrated that its man- 

 ufacture could be profitably conducted on a large scale. His object in 

 introducing the beet into France was to exclude sugar grown in the 

 British Colonies from his Empire. Stimulated by its success in France, 

 the beet sugar interest was revived in Germany, and as early as eighteen 

 hundred and thirty-six, there were one hundred and twenty-two facto- 

 ries in operation. 



On January first, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, there were re- 

 ported three thousand one hundred and seventy-three refineries in ope- 

 ration in Europe, several of which deserve particular notice. 



The factory at Waghausel is of enormous proportions — it covers 

 twelve acres of ground, and employs three thousand hands. 



The little State of Brunswick (about the size and population of San 

 Francisco County), alone, has twenty-five factories, which produced in 

 the fiscal year eighteen hundred and seventy-seventy-one, over forty-six 

 million pounds of sugar (twenty-one million kilos), valued at five million 

 Prussian thalers (about three million two hundred and fifty thousand 

 dollars.) Two hundred and fifty-five million kilos of beets were con- 

 sumed in the production of this amount of sugar. 



