RAISING OF SUGAR-BEETS. 407 



of sugar is quite another. We can raise sugar-beets in all 

 parts of New England, and we can extract more or less 

 sugar from them, no matter where, or under what conditions, 

 they are grown ; but, when it comes to raising them for the 

 express purpose of the manufacture of sugar as a profitable 

 commercial enterprise, we cannot follow the hap-hazard 

 methods which may answer very well in raising them simply 

 as food for cattle. We are confined to comparatively narrow 

 limits as to many details to be observed in the kind and 

 quantity of fertilizers to be used, the size of beets most 

 economical for the manufacture of sugar, the necessity for 

 a long rotation, the intelligent selection of seed and of vari- 

 eties with reference to the amount of saccharine matter, in 

 which they differ so widely, and a thousand other conditions 

 with which we are not as yet sufficiently familiar. 



Perhaps there can be no more striking illustration of the 

 necessity of extreme care than the results of the interesting 

 investigations as to the difference in saccharine matter to be 

 found in large and small sized beets, as presented on p. 384. 

 If such a marked difference in the relative amount of sugar 

 they contain is found to exist uniformly, as we have every 

 reason to believe it does, and as experiments in Europe seem 

 to show, it is very easy to see that the question of success or 

 failure, when it comes to a business enterprise, in the long- 

 run, might turn upon this point. Again : see the very 

 marked difference in saccharine matter resulting from the use 

 of unfermented stable-manures, and old composts or concen- 

 trated fertilizers, in the statements of sugar-beet growers, as 

 presented in Part Second of this Report, pp. 48-52. The 

 difference is so great, that it is apparent that the question of a 

 fair profit, or a certain and positive loss, would be likely to 

 turn upon this point, if the beets were to be used for the 

 extraction and the manufacture of sugar. 



I have no doubt the time will come when we shall do 

 vastly more than we are doing now to supply our own wants 

 in this respect, and when we shall become more independent 

 of foreign importations of an article of such prime necessity. 

 There are many portions of the country where the condi- 

 tions of soil and climate are eminently suited to the devel- 

 opment of this industry, and where it can be established and 

 pursued, not only with profit to the manufacturer, but with 



