148 



matter into complete success ami it would be worse than criminal for us to shut our 

 eyes against the light they have thrown uiion this subject, so important to the comfort 

 and welfare of man. 



France now sends raw sugar into the partially free market of Liverpool, thus com- 

 peting successfully with tropical or cane sugar from the colonies, though only a few 

 years ago she was dependant for her supplies upon tropical sugar. Her resources of 

 territory atid of soil suitable for the growth of the raw material, compared with those 

 of this country, are insignificant. Colorado alone can equal her capabilities for pro- 

 duction. 



Think of a hundred millions of dollars being sent out of the country annually for raw 

 sugar, while we have the capabilities of producing our own supply, and adding this sum, 

 and even double and treble the amount, to our annual exports. I have observed whenever 

 a poor article of sugar finds its way to the consumer here or elsewhere, the mercantile 

 class cry out, " beet sugar." But whence this prompting ? Beet sugar is identical with 

 cane sugar. The poorest sugar in the market is that of our own country prepared by 

 the fashionable process of bi-sulphite of lime. By the use of this unreliable chemi- 

 cal compound a mixed sugar is often obtained, inverted or interverted. Our import- 

 ers often buy such sugar, and refiners realize their mistake only when they come to 

 filter and crystalize it. This mode of making raw sugar with bi-sulphite of lime 

 has been industriously spread throughout the West Indies, whence our refiners draw a 

 large supply. So long as sugar refiners located in our large commercial cities can use 

 their cajiital to great profit in this business, the refining of beet-root sugar may 

 languish, whatever the capabilities of the country ; so long as frontiersmen were con- 

 fined to the forest region of the country, that useful and noble tree, the sugar-maple, 

 made the hardy farmer independent of the sugar refiner, and even of the cane sugar ; 

 and I have often thought that from the maple tree scientific men might draw useful 

 instruction. Some authorities contend that sugar exists in plants at the expense of 

 starch ; others contend that it is an alteration from cellulose. Were it an alteration 

 from either of these substances we ought to find it in the descending juice or sap of 

 the maple, and not in the ascending or unelaborated juice or sap. AH experience 

 shows, however, that sugar is obtained from the ascending juice, and that after its 

 more perfect elaboration, and the tree, plant, or grass j)uts forth its efiiorescent state, 

 we can no longer draw sugar from its juices. I believe this law will hold good with 

 all other trees or plants furnishing the elements ot sugar ready formed in the plant. 

 The cane, Sacharum officinarum, is a perennial plant, and being tropical, or a bark stove 

 perennial, comes slowly to its efiiorescent state, and on this account its ascending juices 

 require and have long time for elaboration. Not so with Indian corn, sorghum, and 

 wheat. They are annuals, and afford sugar only before their juices undergo that degree 

 of elaboration necessary to the efiiorescence of the plant. Beets, carrots, and parsnips, 

 being biennials, their juices contain their maximum of sugar substance the first year, 

 and long retain it, and that too before the more iiorfectly elaborated juices form the 

 complete skeleton or cellulose of the plant. 



These facts I mention as important to the agriculturist, and especially so to those 

 engaged in extracting the sugar from the raw material. Fortunately the plants lifted 

 from the ground when it is known they contain their maximum of sugar matter may 

 with careful management long retain it for the convenience of the subsequent opera- 

 tion. Here let me remark that this region, exempt from late summer and early autumn 

 rains, has great advantage over the eastern and interior western States, where rain- 

 falls at those seasons are heavy and always injurious, changing suddenly the state of 

 the juices in the jjlants, and often making those that were rich in sugar poor and 

 unjjrofitable. In this particular matter I have had my experience with sugar-cane. 

 Beets are quite as reliable for the yield of sugar in a favorable northern climate as 

 sugar-cane is in the tropics, or in semi-tropical climates. My belief is that if proper 

 machinery for extracting the juice of the beet, and suitable utensils for defecating, 

 filtering, evaporating or reducing to sugar, could be obtained for this section of the 

 country and proi)erly located, a new era in sugar production would speedily follow. 



The use of the rasp or mill for rasping or tearing the beets, preparing the roots for 

 the press, is as easily managed as an old-fashioned apple or cider miU, and the 

 hydraulic jiresses work with corresponding simiilicity. The utensils for defecating, 

 iiltering, and evaporating, as well as the centrifugal for drying, have aU long been in 

 use in the first-class sugar-works of Louisiana, and skilled workmen or operators in 

 this branch of the business are quite equal to all that is required in this i)articular. 

 Could our scientific journals, and our agricultural papers especially, be induced to 

 spread before the people cuts, drawings, and representations of machinery and utensils 

 necessary for this particular industry, the reading community would soon come to 

 appreciate its requirements or advantages. 



