402 Journal of Agriculture, Victuria. | 10 Jui.y. l'J19. 



large area of ground upon wliicli beets may be grown by tlie factory management 

 is also wortby of consideration. 



Minority Report. 



It is only within the last few days that I havi' come to UHders-tand that this 

 Committee was asked to pronounce definitely as to whether the type of juiceries 

 now under consideration would or would not be profitable in the working. Had 

 I miderstood this at the outset, I should probably have re-considered my willing- 

 ness to work on the Committee, because I would have known that tiic whole 

 question hinged mainly on the cost of evaporation, and as that cost could not be 

 known without an actual trial, I should have understood that the Committee was 

 asked to come to what was likely to be an im]>ossible decision. All tliat the 

 Committee could logically do would have been to decide whether it was wortli 

 while pursuing the investigation any further. 



As showing how vague and indeterminate is the jiresent kno\vledge as to the 

 cost of the evaporation, it may be pointed out tliat while in the context of the 

 Committee's report now submitted it is stated that the outcome of certain inquiries 

 points to an evaporation of about 4 tons by 1 ton of coal, in the actual figures 

 embodying the estimate of cost of working a juicery, the cost of fuel is not 

 arrived at by calculating on this basis, but merely a round figure of £3 is assumed. 

 Now, this figure of £3, when calculated oitt, gives an evaporation of, not 4 tons, 

 but only 3.4 tons of water by 1 ton of coal. This incident is a clear indication 

 of how vague and inadequate is the knowledge of the cost of the kind of evapora- 

 tion we have had to consider. In fact, it is impossible to arrive at a definite 

 decision without an actual trial of my evaporator; and as Messrs. Eobison 

 Brothers have quoted £115 as the present cost of an evaporator the same as that 

 used in the Port Fairy experiment. I consider that an evaporator should be made 

 and a test carried out. 



Seeing that there is such uncertainty as to the cost of evaporation, it apjiears 

 to me that the present report should give alternative estimates with Iwth liigh 

 and low costs of evajjoration; it should also show the cost with wood fuel as well 

 as with coal. Besides this, it ought to allow for the use of exhaust steam from 

 the engine as an auxiliai-y in the evaporation. Also, that not less tlian four 

 months of the manager-engineer's time should be devoted to actual repair work, 

 and be charged to repairs. I consider, furthei-, that estimates for all types of 

 juiceries should be included in the rejiort instead of only one; and also of 

 different sizes of juiceries, instead of only a 5,000-ton one. 



I have, therefore, prepared, and now submit, a statement which I iirefer in 

 place of all that iiart of the report from end of the paragraph beginning 

 "(3) Travelling Press Juicery" to the end of the main report. 



With all the rest of the report, and with the addenda, I concur. 



(Sisnod) A. N. PEARSON. 



For all that portion of the Committee's report, from the eiul of the paragraph 

 beginning "(3) Travelling Press Juicery" to the end of the main report, I inefer 

 the following: — 



Tentative estimates of the cost of working at tliese three types of juiceries 

 have been ])repared, and statements thereof are given below. The estimates, 

 including cost of beet-root, labour, management, supplies, freight, recejitaclos for 

 the dried juice, fuel, capital, interest, depreciation and repairs, and allowances 

 for pulp and contingencies. 



Beet-root. — It has been assumed that the same price would be paid at the 

 juiceries as noAv paid at Maffra, namely, 27s. 6d. per ton. It has been assumed, 

 also, that the roots would contain 15 per cent, of sugar as a normal. Tlie Maffra 

 beet has in some seasons averaged nearer 16 per cent, than 15 ]nn- cent. r>ut, on 

 the other hand, in the last campaign the average was only 14.4.5 per cent; this 

 was said to be due to a difficulty in getting Rond seed, owing to the war. During 

 his experiments in 1893, Mr. Pearson Sound that, while roots grown from ordinary 

 seed averaged only 13,8 ])er cent, sugar, roots from selected seed — Vilmorin's 

 Improved and Heine's Improved — grown alongside averaged 10.4 per cent, and 

 17.1 jier cent, respectively. He points out that by importing a small an\ount of 

 such improved seed annually, and srowing it for seed ])roduction only, sufiicient 



