357 



Our correspondent at Iberia, Louisiana, sends to the Department a 

 fine specimen of common tobacco, cured and brought in as early as the 

 14th of July. It is a sample of a crop of four acres. 



BEET SUGAR FACTORIES IX CALIFORNIA. 



W. AVadsworth, snperintendeut of the Sacramento Valley Beet Sugar 

 Company, near Sacramento, California, informs the Department that, in 

 preliminary operatious carried on in the fall of 1809, using an open shed 

 as a factory, and with merely temporary machinery, at a cost of $3,000, 

 he obtained llli pounds of good merchavitable sugar from one ton of 

 beets, (being more than 7 per cent.,) besides four gallons <»f inferior 

 sirup. In March of this year he again went to Germany and contracted 

 with Seele & Co., of Brunswick, lor 450 tons of machinery, for a factory 

 capable of producing 75 tons of sugar daily ; this machinery to be shipped 

 in December. The company v.ill adopt the Roberts's diffusion process. 



The Alameda Beet Sugar Company, at Alvarado, of whose inception 

 an account was given in the monthly report of the Department for 

 July, have from oOO to 400 acres in beets. The general appearance of 

 the crop, and the results of saccharine tests of samples taken weekly 

 from the fields, so far give satisfactory evidences of the adaptability of 

 that soil and climate to the production of the sugar beet. The factory 

 of the company is I'OO feet in length by 50 in width, and three stories 

 high, erected at a cost of $20,000 ; the machinery costing about $11*0,000. 

 The superintendent is A. D. Bonesteel, lately X)roprietor of a beet sugar 

 sugar factory at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. 



CAXAL FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO LAKE BORGXE. 



Work is actively progressing on the ik-w canal which is to connect 

 the Mississippi at New Orleans with Lake Borgne and the Gulf of 

 ]\[exico; and it is stated that the enterprise will be completed by the 

 latter part of next winter. The canal will be 70 feet wide and 12 feet 

 deep, and its lake terminus is to be at Fort Dupries, seven miles distant 

 from tlie ^lississippi. About a thousand feet from that river is to be a 

 lock, 500 teet long by 147 feet wide, and 18 feet deep. For vessels 

 drawing nearly 12 feet the distance between New Orleans and the deep 

 w^aters of the Gulf will be shortened about 70 miles. Small craft 

 from New Orleans for Mobile and Florida ports will save 15 miles 

 in distance, and the transshipment of many bulky articles will be ob- 

 viated. The transfer of grain in barges to ships at Ship Island will be 

 facilitated, and it is claimed that the cost of grain transportation wiU 

 be diminished 5 cents per bushel. 



NEW MINERAL FERTILIZER. 



A new mineral fertilizer has been discovered in rock of the ''Grafton 

 Gold Mine," in Lyman, Grafton County, New Hampshire. About fifty 

 pounds of the material were sent in April, 1809, to Dr. Torrey, United 

 States assayer at New York City, who reported that it was found to con- 



