1.5 Dec, 1919.] The Beet Sugar Industry. 723 



For these reasons tlie beet sugar industry, with its favorable wbite 

 labour conditions, is likely to hold a strong position in the production of 

 what we might rightly term a staple food product, and in the promotion 

 of closer settlement and intense farming. 



A Brief Account of Sugar Beet Growing in Victoria. 



It will not be out of place to touch very lightly on the genesis of the 

 beet sugar industry in Victoria. Its difficulties and discouragements 

 may act as danger signals against faulty methods, while the advantages 

 observed may help to pilot any extension of this valuable industry along 

 safe and successful lines. 



From 1866 until 1898 the industry in Victoria was toyed with in a 

 perfunctory Avay without any success from a manufacturing point of 

 view, though some sugar was actually manufactured at the Anakies Mill 

 in 1873. Some very useful and promising experiments were carried 

 out in the growing of sugar beet, chiefly in Gippsland and the Western 

 District, indicating that our climatic and soil conditions are reasonably 

 favorable. Very successful plots, both as regards tonnage and sugar 

 content, were grown in the Port Fairy, JSJ'arre Warren, and Maffra 

 districts, "and more recent experiments tend to confirm the opinion that 

 Victorian conditions are generally favorable to the growing of beet. 



The districts with a suitable rainfall, however, at present offer the 

 most favorable field for the extension of the industry, though, taking 

 into consideration the question of sugar content, surety of yields, and 

 convenience of handling the beets in the drier areas under irrigation, 

 irrigable areas may eventually prove most desirable. At one time it 

 was thought that irrigation would be detrimental to sugar content, but 

 in actual experience it is found that an .abundance of moisture 

 applied in the early-growing period, with comparatively dry and 

 sunshiny conditions towards maturity, is more conducive to high 

 purity, good sugar content, and regular yields, than those uncertain, 

 irregular climatic conditions which so often result in a dry-growing 

 period, with excessive rains at maturity, thereby producing low-grade 

 beets. Victoria has not yet had occasion or opportunity to broadly 

 determine which is the more favorable, but as in America, it is likely 

 that both irrigable and good rainfall areas will produce profitable beets, 

 the irrigated areas being more costly, but more reliable than the non- 

 irrigated. 



The fact that numerous but small test plots right back in 1887-1890 

 indicated favorable possibilities for beet-sugar growing, was not suffi- 

 cient to prove that the industry under ordinary business conditions, 

 where all manner of contingencies and difficulties have to be met and 

 allowed for, could become a financial and commercial success; and in 

 1898 the industry was put to a definite, and what was expected to be a 

 fairly complete test. 



After some years of organizing, a Company was formed, and a sub- 

 stantial and w^ell-equipped factory was constructed at Maffra, said to 

 be capable of treating 400 tons of beets per day. A considerable area 

 of beet was planted in the spring of 1897, but a dry summer was ex- 

 perienced. In the autumn of 1898, the factory treated some 9,000 tons 



