TJie Country Ge^itlcman's Magazine 



people; but even after the most careful 

 selection of say i-i6oth part of an acre, and 

 ^th of an acre of turnips, I frequently had 

 from 2 to 3 tons of difference of weight per 

 acre. I have verified this result so often. 



that I put no value on results of crops taken 

 from i-i6oth part of an acre, more especially 

 if taken in one drill of turnips. Duplicate 

 experiments are also specially valuable to agri- 

 culturists. 



SUGAR-BEET CULTIVATION IN ENGLAND. 



WE import annually, says Mr James 

 Caird, in a letter to the Times, about 

 2,000^000 tons of wheat and 700,000 tons of 

 sugar. Our foreign supply of these two 

 great articles of consumption is thus in the 

 proportion of nearly three to one. Adding the 

 home supply of wheat, and converting the 

 whole into flour, the annual consumption per 

 head is something over four of flour to one 

 of sugar. Next to bread, sugar has thus be- 

 come a main necessary of life in this country, 

 and contributes immensely to the comfort of 

 the poorer classes, and especially during times 

 of low wages and irregular employment. 



The Lancashire grocers will tell you that 

 at such periods the consumption of sugar 

 and tea by the labouring class largely in- 

 creases, for then they cannot so well afford 

 the greater luxuries of beef and beer, for 

 which in prosperous times like the present 

 there is so great a demand and so large a 

 consumption. High wages have become 

 synonymous with a high price of butcher's 

 meat, low wages with a rapid increase in the 

 demand for sugar. There is now no tax left 

 the abolition of which would be so generally 

 and immediately felt among the poorest class 

 of the people as the duty on sugar. 



The supply is not equal to the demand, 

 and yet every effort is being made, both in 

 the tropics and on the Continent, to increase 

 the production of cane and beet sugar ; but 

 the price continues to rise, and nothing, 

 therefore, can be more encouraging than the 

 prospects of the sugar grower. Notwith- 

 standing this, only one vigorous attempt to 

 introduce the cultivation of sugar has yet 

 been made in England. 



The fourth season at Lavenham, in Suf- 

 folk, closed in February last. The growth of 

 sugar-beet has each year increased, beginning 

 in 1868 with 1000 tons, rising to 3400 tons 

 in 1869, 4500 in 1870, 6200 in 1871, and 

 the promise of a growth for the present sea- 

 son of 8000 to 10,000 tons. The crops 

 have varied with the seasons, both in quan- 

 tity and quality ; but these figures shew very 

 plainly that the farmers of Lavenham have 

 found it to suit their business to grow sugar- 

 beet at the price of 20s. per ton ; and the 

 manufacturer, Mr Duncan, on the average of 

 these years, is equally satisfied with the result 

 to him. During the four months of the 

 manufacture about ;^5oo a-month was spent 

 in wages, nearly the whole of which was a 

 clear addition to the ordinary wages' fund of 

 the locality in the winter season. 



The past season proved unfavourable for 

 the manufacture all over Europe. The yield 

 of sugar was small, as is proved by the fact 

 that, notwithstanding a large increase of 

 acreage under sugar-beet, the Continental 

 sugar crop of 187 1 is estimated to have pro- 

 duced only 860,000 tons, as compared with 

 942,000 tons in 1870 on a considerably 

 smaller area. The same influence of season 

 operated unfavourably in England. It paid 

 the gi'ower, because the crop was bulky; but 

 the manufacturer had a smaller per-centage of 

 sugar. These vicissitudes of season must be 

 expected, and Mr Duncan has satisfied him- 

 self, by personal examination on the Conti- 

 nent, that the deficiency of saccharine yield 

 in France and Germany Avas at least as great 

 as he had found it in Suffolk. This has not 

 checked the progress of beet culture. New 



