378 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ON THE CULTIVATION" OF THE SUGAE-BEET FOE THE 

 MANUFACTUEE OF SUGAE. 



Our domestic resources for the manufacture of sugar have 

 thus far, for various reasons, failed to meet our demand. We 

 have produced annually from the sugar-cane, the sorghum, 

 and the sugar-maple, only from one-sixth to one-fifth of what 

 we consume ; leaving an additional amount of from six hun- 

 dred to six hundred and fifty thousand tons of sugar to be 

 obtained by importation. This fact, in connection with the 

 circumstance that the annual production of sugar from 

 the beet-root in Europe, under climatical conditions similar 

 to our own, has steadily increased, amounting at present to 

 not less than from seven to eight hundred thousand tons 

 annually, or about one-half of the entire consumption of 

 that continent, has turned public attention to the question, 

 whether, with intelligent management, the production of 

 beet-sugar as a commercial enterprise can be profitably 

 undertaken in Massachusetts, as it has been in many coun- 

 tries of Europe ? whether we, like Germany, France, and 

 Austria, can supply our home consumption of sugar by 

 home production? 



However the views of the friends of the beet-sugar interest 

 may have differed at times in regard to its financial success 

 as a mere industrial enterprise or as a source of a cheaper 

 article of domestic manufacture, they all agree on one 

 point, namely, that, in connection with agriculture, it has in 

 Europe proved to be one of the most important and most suc- 

 cessful attempts to stimulate the introduction of sound princi- 

 ples into agricultural pursuits, to develop rational agriculture, 

 and to promote a healthy feeling of a common interest between 

 agriculture and manufactures, between capital and labor. Im- 

 proved farm management, and a rapid progress in the modes 

 of separating the sugar economically, went hand in hand. 

 European agriculturists have brought about this thrifty union 

 of industrial and agricultural interests by devoting them- 

 selves with untiring perseverance to the task of producing a 

 sugar-beet which contains the largest possible amount of 

 sugar in the most favorable condition for extraction. 



A high percentage of sugar in the beet-root is not the 

 sole, though a most important requirement. The great aim 



