118 
Another estimate is 1 gallon pure alcohol from 1-26 bushels of 
potatoes.’ ns is ,9g 
» The advisability of developing a similar industry in this country 
has been enquired into by a Committee especially appointed for 
the purpose, and the conclusions arrived at were, “that in the pre- 
sent agricultural conditions of this country it would not be possible 
to found a profitable industry.”? In Ireland the Department of 
Agriculture has come to somewhat. similar conclusions. unless the 
first cost of the potatoes was less than 29s. per ton. The success 
attending distillation of spirit from the potato in Germany is re- 
garded as being due to favourable taxation, enabling the potato 
distilleries to compete with the cereal distilleries, the payment of a 
ounty on alcohol used for methylation, export, or in the. manu- 
facture of goods intended for export, the heavy cost of transport 
from some parts of the Empire to markets, and the consequent low 
net price realised for potatoes intended for consumption, and the 
use of a large proportion, when refined as a potable spirit.2 To 
these considerations may be added the use of the residue after dis- 
tillation as food for cattle. 
Particulars of the industry as carried on in Germany, prepared 
y Dr. Rose, H.M. Consul at Stuttgart are given in The Journal 
of the Board of Agriculture, vol. xi. April 1904, pp. 29-31. 
Potatoes are also grown in Prussia—yield 25,630,000 metric tons 
in 1911 ;* in Poland, from whence 11,000,000 gallons of spirit were 
exported in 1907 to Russia,® where also they are grown for purposes 
of distillation, the cultivation becoming annually of greater im- 
portance.° 
low a percentage of sugar (4 per cent. or thereabouts) as to be 
Tyeaebe for use in the sugar factories. 
e value of other roots mentioned here, lies in the starch con- 
tent, but that of the beet-root turns on the sugar content, of which 
they may contain 13-16 per cent., capable of producing about 18 | 
gallons of spirit per ton.® Voelcker in 1870 estimated the return 
om an acre at 20 tons of beet-root yielding 360 gallons of proof 
spirit and 4 tons of pulp; the profit on a distillery working a crop 
of 500 acres being given at £9,000, or nearly double that of a sugar 
' Mon. Cons. and Trade Rep. Washington, No. 312, 1906, p. 5. 
* Journ. Bd. of Agric. xii. May 1905, pp. 105-106. 
> 1.c. xi. March 1905, p. 733. 
‘ Bd. of Trade Journ. Dec. 7th, 1911, p. 511. 
* Dip. and Cons. Rep. No. 3988, Ann. 1908, p. 22. 
* Bd. of Trade Journ. Jan. 12th, 1911, p. 101. 
‘ Bd. of Trade Journ. Dec. 14, 1911, p. 562. The accuracy of the figures 
"Pweg US Doph A 2 d Bull 
y, U.S. : ic. Farmers’ Bull. No. 268, 1906, p. 30, am . 
Imp: we 1907, p. 6a. so ee 
