MICHIGAN BEET SUGAR 389 



MOLASSES. 



A yield of fifteen tons of beets removes from each acre GG pounds 

 of nitrogen, 30 pounds of phosplioric acid, and 144 pounds of potash. 

 In the sugar factory these minerals appear in the by-products. Part 

 of the nitrogen and most of the phosphoric acid are found in the press 

 cakes, and the potash in the osmosis water and the waste molasses. 

 The molasses contains on the average, nitrogen, 1.4G per cent; phor- 

 phoric acid. .05 per cent; and potash, 5.G3 per cent. 



It is evident at once that this molasses is a valuable fertilizer for 

 the potash and nitrogen which it contains. German farmers have found 

 it a very useful stock feed, either when mixed with the regualr ration 

 or when added to dried blood, dried beet pulp, or even peat and re- 

 dried. Experiments are not at hand to indicate the value of beet mo- 

 lasses in units of well-known feeding stuffs. All that can be said now 

 is that as the output of the factories increases the farmers must utilize 

 the pulp and molasses as feed for live stock and thus return the valu- 

 able plant food removed by the crop of beets to their farms or the soil 

 will rapidly deteriorate. Beets are a trying crop at best, and the only 

 way that the fertility can be at all maintained is by increasing the 

 number of cattle and sheep fed in the vicinity of the factories in the 

 same proportion that the land devoted to beets increases. Commercial 

 fertilizers alone will not maintain the fertility of the soil because they 

 cannot directly supply the humus. On the other hand, the utilization 

 of the by-products of the factory as stock food guarantees the per- 

 manence of the fertility of the soil, if indeed it does not insure an in- 

 crease in richness. In Germany and France statistics show that while 

 the sugar factories have demanded a large acreage for the produc- 

 tion of beets they have not lessened, but rather increased, the export of 

 wheat and other cereals from the counties in which they are situated, 

 and have at the same time quadrupled the amount of stock fed, and 

 have thus contributed in two ways to the financial enrichment of the 

 farmers. As the analyses indicate, the molasses contains a very large 

 share of the mineral constituents of the sugar beets. It is therefore 

 important that they be returned to the farmer. On the other hand, 

 molasses is now profitably utilized as a raw material from which alcohol 

 and potash are made. It is now a (luestion whether this waste product 

 is more valuable for the farm or the ahcdiol factorv. 



