462 Transactions of the 



CULTURE OF TtfE SUGAR BEET. 



BY WM. M. HAYNIE, OF SACRAMENTO. 



In presenting a brief statement of facts in reference to the culture of 

 the sugar beet, and its great value as a sugar and forage root, I cannot 

 avad myself of much practical experience in -connection with the subject; 

 but, as I promised you, I will give you a statement of what I believe 

 to be reliable tacts, deduced from information obtained from practical 

 sugar makers, and different reports upon the* subject. It is no longer 

 with us a problem whether California can raise the sugar beet with 

 sufficient percentage of saccharine matter secreted within its cells to 

 make the extraction and conversion of this principle into sugar a profit- 

 able and a grand financial success. 



THE HISTORY OF BEET SUGAR. 



The history of the culture of the beet for sugar is one of the most 

 interesting and valuable pertaining to the industrial arts. Although it 

 does not run back more than seventy-five years, its growth and devel- 

 opments have been so rapid that in many European countries the 

 production of sugar from tiie beet is firmly established, and has become 

 one of their most stable and valuable industries. In seventeen hundred 

 and forty-seven, Margraff, a Prussian chemist, read before the Academy 

 of Berlin his memoir ou the existence of a sugar in the beet identical 

 with that in the cane. It was not, however, until fourteen years after 

 this that this discovery found its first application. 



Achard, another chemist of Berlin, republished the discoveries of Mar- 

 graff, and it is to his indefatigable industry and perseverance that we 

 owe the first practical methods used in the manufacture of beet sugar. 

 From seventeen hundred and eighty-nine to seventeen hundred and 

 ninety-six Achard devoted himself to the culture of the beet and experi- 

 menting in sugar making at his farm at Caulsdroff, near Berlin, at the 

 end of which time he founded at Kuncrn, in Silesia, with the assistance 

 of Government, a manufactory which proved to be successful. This is 

 the origin of the manufacture which is to-day represented by so many 

 establishments through continental Europe. The great cost, however, 

 of the sugar, from the crude and defective method of extracting the 

 juice, defacation, and erystahzation of the sugar, precluded this and two 

 other establishmen is, which had been erected near Paris, from prosecuting 

 the business, and very soon they were forced to suspend operations, and 

 their failure threw great discredit on the industry. In eighteen hundred 

 and ten the attention of the French Government was called to this sub- 

 ject, and some specimens of sugar were presented to tlie Emperor, Napo- 

 leon. This sugar was the product of experiments made in France and 

 induced by a report read before the Academy of Sciences by M. Deyeux. 

 The price of caue sugar (about sixty cents per pound) in France at that 



