196 



operate on an extensive scale in Texas, if that region proves to be 

 favorable to saccharine development of the beet. He reports details of 

 the success of Mr. Jaines Duncan, of Lavenham, England, as follows : 

 Capital employed, £12,000. Beets used this jear, 6,000 tons ; sugar 

 made, 540 tons ; cost of beets, £6,000 ; factory expenses for 110 days, 

 £4,400 ; interest, repairs, «S:c., £2,000 ; total expenses, £12,400. The 

 receipts for 540 tons of sugar, at £43 per ton, £23,220; 1,200 tons pulp 

 sold to farmers, at 12s. per ton, £720 ; total receipts, £23,940 ; profit, 

 £11,540. The average percentage of sugar obtained from these beets 

 by Dr. Voelcker's analysis was 12, but the percentage actually obtained 

 at Lavenham was 9, by the process of single carbonitation. This pro- 

 cess is stated to*be not equal to Schrosenbach's alcoholic process. Car- 

 bonic acid gas is passed through the sirup after the first defecation with 

 lime and first boiling down. It is then filtered i through bone black 

 once, and is then ready to boil down to the granulating point. Mr. 

 Chapman brought home a bag of this sugar for samples, equal to the 

 best refined white cane sugar, and made in England at two-thirds the 

 cost of the latter. 



A small brochure, the work of a Belgian agriculturist in England, just 

 issued, npon the " beet-root sugar question," represents the manufacture 

 of sugar as favoring gi-eatly the interests of small farmers of Belgium. 

 The manufacturers are generally proprietors of 1,000 to 2,000 acres, of 

 which they farm 200 to 400 acres, and sow one-fourth in beet root. 

 Their tenants are restricted from growing the beet in larger proportion, 

 as a decrease in the quantity of sugar results from a rotation of less 

 than four years. The author, E. F. DeMean, makes the following state- 

 ment of the expense of growing beets in West Flanders : 



Net value of an acre sold " on foot " £20 



Eent and taxes £2 10 



Plowing and harrowing 1 50 



Manure 2 5 



Seed and sowing 10 



Weeding, &c 110 



S 



Leaving a net profit of , . , . : 12 



THE CLIMATE OF SANTA BAEBAEA, CALIFOENIA. 



The salubrity of the climate of some portions of the Pacific coast has 

 become proverbial. Dryness, mildness, and equability are requisites of 

 a climate which shall be promotive of health, and these are possessed 

 by certain localities of California in a degree unequaled on the conti- 

 nent. The attention of the convention of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation, recently in session at San Francisco, was called to a series of 

 therraometrical observations made at Santa Barbara during the year 

 commencing April 1, 1870, and ending March 31, 1871. This town lies 

 on the coast, in Southern California, in latitude 34 degrees, 10 minutes, 

 which very nearly corresponds to that of Wilmington, North Carolina, 

 on the Atlantic coast. The thermometrical observations referred to 

 embrace the weekly average for the year, the monthly mean, the 

 monthly mean at 2 o'clock p. m., and this warmest and coldest days in 

 each month, and are as follows : 



