MONTHLY REPORT. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Washington, D. C., February 29, 1868. 
Sir: I respectfully submit for publication the accompanying matter for the 
February report, as follows: Beet-root Sugar, a letter from the Commissioner 
of Agriculture to Hon. 8S. M. Cullom, M. C.; Remission of Customs Duties on 
Living Animals, Plants and Seeds, in communications from the Commissioner 
of Agriculture to the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives ; 
Special Statistics of Farm Resources and Products, continued from the February 
number, embracing analyses of returns from the southern States ; Horse-hoeing 
Wheat; Agriculture in Common Schools; Castor Oil Bean; Experiments 
with Farm Fertilizers; The Reports of Agriculture; Tables of Wool Im- 
ports for four months ; Meteorology. 
Respectfully, 
J. R. DODGE, Statistician. 
ion. Horace CAPRON, 
Commissioner of Agriculture. 
BEET-ROOT SUGAR. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Washington, D. C., February 23, 1868. 
Sir: I respond with pleasure to your request for a statement giving an outline 
of the leading facts of beet sugar production. As investigations of the subject 
are now in progress in this office, including original analyses of the beet at differ- 
ent periods of its growth, a complete history of the enterprise in this country, 
and a synopsis of European experience and its results, I will at this time only 
give a brief view of the importance and extent of the beet sugar business in its 
present status. 
Without government encouragement at the outset it might not now be num- 
bered among the industries which bless the world. When the first Bonaparte 
fostered the art of extracting sugar from this garden vegetable as a practical 
matter, the possibility of obtaining a good article had long previously been 
demonstrated by chemists; it only remained to be shown that the manufacture 
could be conducted with profit on a large scale. His object was to exclude from 
his empire the sugar of British colonies, the price of which was then four or 
five franes per pound. A prize of one million franes was offered by the French 
government for the most successful method of obtaining a supply of indigenous 
sugar. It was soon evident that such a supply must be furnished from the 
beet root. 
In Poland, also, in 1812, government loans and exemption from conscription, 
in aid of the enterprise, were freely offered. In fact, the principal governments 
