STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



281 



sumed by each person has largely increased ; that the manufacture 

 supplies entirely the home market; that large quantities of sugar are 

 annually exported, while at the same time the tax on the beets used in 

 this manufacture is the source of a large. revenue to the State. 



The following information in regard to the introduction and develop- 

 ment of the manufacture of beet sugar in Austria was communicated to 

 the Department of State by Mr. P. Sidney Post, United States Consul 

 at Vienna :* 



" Tjhere is no industry of Austria which ought to interest the United 

 States so much as the production of sugar from the beet root. The 

 United States appears to be in every respect as well, and in many 

 respects much better, adapted for its production than this country. 



" Beets containing a large amount of saccharine matter can be abun- 

 dantlv and cheaply raised in all the Northern States, and especially in 

 the northwest; and if the great profit of converting them into sugar 

 was fully understood, there would be plenty of capital for the supply of 

 the necessary machinery. 



" The machinery is expensive, and it requires a large amount of capital 

 to commence operations, but it is doubtful whether there is any branch 

 of industry which would so well repay capital and enterprise. The 

 business cannot well be conducted on a small scale, and this disadvantage 

 has, doubtless, hitherto prevented its being general^ adopted in the 

 United States. But wTaen it shall have been given a fair trial it must 

 become a very important interest. 



" The growth of the manufacture of sugar is as wonderful ^s the his- 

 tory of the legislation on this subject in Europe is interesting. The 

 embargo of Napoleon, which forced on France the production of sugar, 

 proved to Austria how beneficial the industry would be to this empire ; 

 but the first factories were not built until eighteen hundred and thirty. 



" In eighteen hundred and thirty there were two factories; in eighteen 

 hundred and fifty-one, one hundred ; in eighteen hundred and sixty-one, 

 one hundred and twenty-five; in eighteen hundred and sixty-two, one 

 hundred and thirty; in eighteen hundred and sixty-four, one hundred 

 and thirty-six ; in eighteen hundred and sixty-six, one hundred and forty. 



" There is a tax levied upon the beets before they are manufactured 

 into sugar, and by this means the exact quantity consumed is known. 



Quantify of beets converted into sugar during the years named. 



Year. 



Cwt. 



1851 



1853 

 1855 



1857 

 1858 

 1859 

 1860 

 1861 



5,411,770 

 6,387,319 

 7,989,390 

 11,892,941 

 15,681,114 

 21,017,574 

 18,511,909 

 17,682,594 



* Vide report on commercial relations, etc., for 1867, page 510. 



36 



