Suzar-Bcct Cultivation in Ensrland 



31 



factories are springing up in France, Ger- 

 many, and Austria. In Belgium alone 

 eighteen new factories are now being erected, 

 and in Holland nine. 



This is an agricultural industry that has 

 made most rapid strides on the Continent, 

 and with great and general benefit wherever 

 it has been introduced. It necessitates and 

 pays for a higher and more enriching system 

 of farming, and is uniformly attended by a 

 great increase in the production of fat cattle 

 and the yield of corn. The climate and soil 

 of Suffolk have proved that it may with equal 

 success be introduced and extended in the 

 Eastern and South Midland counties of 

 England, and as it is a method which unites 

 the advantages of live stock and corn with the 

 profits and larger returns of the manufacturer, 

 we should hail it as a welcome addition to 

 our agricultural system. One great difficulty 



in modern English agriculture, where high 

 farming is practised, is to get beyond a cer- 

 tain high average produce of corn. That 

 difficulty has been solved in some of the 

 northern counties by the more extensive 

 growth of potatoes. The culture of beet 

 would be more suitable to the southern and 

 eastern counties, and more enriching, as the 

 pulp is returned to the farm to be consumed 

 by fattening cattle, and it might prove an 

 agreeable change both to the farmer and the 

 soil from the uniform routine of the four- 

 course system. If sugar should come to be 

 regarded as a prime necessary of food, which, 

 like bread, should be untaxed, we might see 

 a very rapid development of sugar culture in 

 England, with advantages to consumer and 

 producer even greater than have everywhere 

 followed its introduction into Continental 

 countries. 



BEET-SUGAR CULTIVATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



AN interesting report on the cultivation 

 of sugar-beets has been issued by 

 Professor Charles A. Goessman, Ph.D., of 

 the Massachausetts Agricultural College. 

 Last year an experiment was made on the 

 college farm with 47 acres of land, prepared 

 in the best manner possible for the reception 

 of beet-seed. Owing to the want of a suit- 

 able drill for sowing the seed, the rows were 

 made 2j4 feet apart, instead of from 18 to 

 20 inches apart, as should have been the 

 case, thus leaving considerable waste land. 

 The seed drill also worked imperfectly, 

 leaving blank spaces in some of the rows. 

 Still, under these unfavourable circumstances, 

 the root crop averaged 22,200 lb. to the 

 acre. Seeds of the following varieties of beets 

 were planted, namely: — Vilmorin of 1869, 

 Imperial of 1869, ditto of 1870, Electoral 

 of 1870, Vienna Globe of 1869, varieties 

 of mangold of 1870. The Imperial sugar- 

 beet crop — seed of 1870— gave 12.59 per 

 cent, of sugar; Vilmorin, 12.95 per cent. ; 



Electoral, 12.30 per cent. ; Vienna, red, 

 white, and yellow globe beets, 8.004 per 

 cent. ; ordinary mangolds, 5.035. These 

 results were obtained by analysis, and not in 

 the regular process of manufacture. A com- 

 putation, made with these results as a basis, 

 shews a handsome margin of clear profit ob- 

 tainable on the assumption that the extract- 

 ing process would be economically and 

 skilfully conducted. In concluding his re- 

 port. Professor Goessman touches upon a 

 vital point relative to the profitable exten- 

 sion of the beet-sugar manufacture in the 

 United States. It has been argued, against 

 the introduction of this manufacture, that the 

 difference in the price of the American and 

 European labour forbids the hope of our 

 competing with foreign producers. This 

 argument is met by Professor Goessman, 

 thus : — 



"Although recognizing the great weight 

 of this point— for with the farmer rests the 

 success of the enterprise in the end— I believe 



