STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 273 



The results of the labors of Achard were published in seventeen hun- 

 dred and ninety-seven. The Annates de Chimie, in seventeen hundred 

 and ninety-nine, contained a letter from h^m, in which he described the 

 processes used by him in the manufacture of beet sugar, and the cost of 

 the manufactured article. In the same letter he also forcibly presented 

 the advantages which would result to agriculture by the introduction of 

 this new industry. 



The political situation in Europe was at this time singularly favorable 

 to the discoveries of Achard. France desired to be freed from the com- 

 mercial monopoly of England, and to reduce the high price of sugar 

 which the war with that power had caused. 



Experience in France did not, however, confirm the brilliant results 

 which had been announced. The Commission appointed by the Institute 

 to inquire into this matter reported the cost of the new product at one 

 franc eighty centimes, instead of sixty centimes, the price announced by 

 Achard. Two manufactories which had been established near Paris 

 suspended operations, and by their failure threw great discredit upon 

 this industry, which has achieved its present success only after many 

 years of patient and persistent endeavor. 



In eighteen hundred and ten, the report of Mr. Deyeux, which was 

 read before the Academy of Sciences, again called the attention of the 

 public to the advantages which would result from the manufacture of 

 beet sugar. Cane sugar had at this time reached an exorbitant price, 

 being three francs per half kilogram, equal to about sixty cents per 

 pound. The attention of the French Government was also called to this 

 subject, and some specimens of sugar were presented to the Emperor 

 Napoleon. 



The feasibility of the manufacture of sugar from the beet having been 

 established, there needed to be but a favorable opportunity to secure to 

 France the possession of this industry. 



By the decree of March twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and eleven, the 

 Emperor ordered that thirty-two thousand hectares of land should be 

 devoted to the culture of the beet, and one million francs were placed at 

 the disposal of the Minister of Interior for encouraging this industry. 

 Instructions were sent to all the departments, and a new decree, under 

 the date of January fifteenth, eighteen hundred and twelve, established 

 five schools of chemistry, where the processes used in this manufacture 

 were taught. Two million kilograms of raw sugar were also produced 

 in the four imperial factories, from the harvest of eighteen hundred and 

 twelve. 



The manufacture was further encouraged by granting five hundred 

 manufacturers' licenses, and by decreeing that all indigenous sugar 

 should be exempt from taxation for four years. 



The political crisis of eighteen hundred and fourteen was a terrible 

 blow to this new industry, and caused the failure of all the manufac- 

 turers but one. In December of eighteen hundred and fourteen, Iioav- 

 ever, under an impost of about three and one-third cents per pound, 

 while that of foreign sugar was five cents per pound, the industry 

 revived. New and more effective methods of manufacture were intro- 

 duced, and sixty or seventy per cent, of juice was realized, instead of 

 fifty or sixty per cent., the amount obtained by the older processes. The 

 yield of sugar at this time was from three to four per cent., the yield of 

 molasses five per cent., and the cost of manufacture about seven cents 



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