274 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



per pound. From this time till eighteen hundred and thirty, the progress 

 made was as rapid as it was great. In eighteen hundred and twenty- 

 two the }-ield of sugar was abtut five per cent., and the cost of manu- 

 facture five and a half cents per pound. The amount produced at this 

 time, in one hundred different establishments, was about five thousand 

 tons. 



The introduction of steam power had a marked effect upon this indus- 

 try. In eighteen hundred and thirty-six the number of manufactories 

 was one hundred and thirty-six. Since eighteen hundred and forty, 

 though there has been a constant struggle between the cane growers 

 of the French colonies and the beet growers of France, the amount of 

 beet sugar produced in France has doubled every ten years. 



In eighteen hundred and sixty-five and eighteen hundred and sixty- 

 six, the production of beet sugar had reached two hundred and seventy- 

 four millions of kilograms, an amount more than sufficient to supply 

 home consumption Avithout recourse to the French colonies. 



In eighteen hundred and thirty the average annual consumption of 

 sugar in France per each person was about two pounds, of which the 

 beet sugar manufacture produced about nine per cent. 



In eighteen hundred and sixty-five the average consumption was four- 

 teen pounds per each person, the beet sugar manufacture supplying suf- 

 ficient for that amount. 



The rapid growth and development of this industry throughout Europe 

 forms one of the most interesting spectacles of the present century, and 

 the economic, social and industrial questions to which it has given 

 rise, have attracted the attention and monopolized the labors of the 

 leading minds of the countries in which it has been established. The 

 beet has found its supporters and adherents in the cabinets of kings, the 

 academies of science, in agricultural societies and farmers' clubs, in the 

 machine shop, and in the peasants' cottage. No other industry of mod-, 

 em times has so successfully harmonized the agricultural and manufac- 

 turing interests which have heretofore been regarded as inimical to each 

 other, or has originated and supported so many subservient and minor 

 interests. The manufacture of sugar has been established and success- 

 fully carried on in Prussia, Austria, Russia, Holland, the Zollverein, Bel- 

 gium, Poland and Sweden. The total amount of sugar produced in 

 these countries, and in France, is six hundred and thirty thousand tons 

 per annum. Except in the seaboard towns of France none other than 

 beet sugar is used ; the same is true also of Germany, none but beet 

 sugar is consumed in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic or ^Munich. 

 The average yield of sugar for the past eight years has been over eight 

 per cent., and of molasses about two and forty one-hundredths per cent. 

 The reduction of the price of sugar effected by means of the substitu- 

 tion of power for hand labor, and the introduction of new and useful 

 machines and processes is illustrated by the following table,* snowing 

 the average prices, exclusive of duties, of number twelve raw sugar in 

 Paris, from eighteen hundred and sixteen to eighteen hundred and sixty- 

 five, inclusive, omitting the period from eighteen hundred and twenty- 

 eight to eighteen hundred and fifty-four, during which time the price 

 gradually fell : 



Vide Lett-root Sugar and Cultivation of the Beet, by E. B. Grant, Boston, 1867, p. 19. 



