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of continental Europe vied with each other in perfecting and extending the new 
business. . 
A manufactory of beet sugar was in successful operation in Silesia as early as 
1805; and in France repeated experiments were undertaken a few years later. 
Up to 1818 no very marked or rapid progress was made, though the business 
was constantly extending. 
In 1839 the manufacture, already established upon a solid footing, embraced 
the operations of 268 factories in France, Germany, Sweden, and Russia. In 
1848 France alone had 294; Prussia 346, and Russia 425. The present num- 
ber of factories in France (according to De Neumann) is 449; many of them 
are far more extensive than those of former days, and fourteen of the number 
have been established during the past year. At the first of January, 1868, 
3,173 refineries of beet-root sugar were reported as in operation in Europe. 
The total product in 1828 is stated to have been 7,000 tons; in 1851, 180,000 
tons; and in 1867 the enormous quantity of 663,000 tons, or 1,485,120,000 
pounds, worth $100,000,000, or about seven cents per pound. 
Sixteen years ago, France was able to manufacture half of her total con- 
sumption of sugar, or 60,000 tons; and Belgium, consuming 14,000 tons, im- 
ported, in 1851, but 4,000 tons. Germany, at the same date, produced 43,000 
tons; Austria 15,000, and Russia 35,000 tons ; the latter country also import- 
ing, at that time, 50,000 tons of sugar in addition to the home product. The 
total manufacture of Europe, as stated above, has been almost quadrupled since 
that date, and cane sugar in several of those states in now scarcely known. 
The amount manufactured in France during the three months ending No- 
vember 30, 1867, was 120,553 tons—18,613 more than was made in the same 
period of the previous year. 
During the past year, 15,600 tons of raw beet sugar have been imported into 
London, yielding customs revenue to the amount of £159,883, or more than 
three quarters of a million of dollars. An English sugar refiner, who uses 300 
tons of raw beet sugar per week, now offers eighteen shillings ($4 50) per ton 
for 6,000 tons of English sugar beet. 
The product of beets per acre is from fourteen to fifteen tons in France and 
Belgium. Enormous crops have occasionally been reported. The English 
Gardener’s Chronicle contains the statement of M. de Gasparin of twenty-seven 
tons seven hundred weight grown upon thirty-nine perches sixteen square 
yards, or nearly 110 tons per acre. He sowed the seed under glass, transplanted 
plants in April, hoed repeatedly, and irrigated every two weeks. 
A ton of beets yields about 100 pounds of raw sugar. At first the propor- 
tion of sugar obtained was but three per cent. It was increased to six, and 
even to seven and a half per cent. 
The beet cake for feeding purposes, the molasses, alchohol, and other pro- 
ducts obtained greatly increase the aggregate which makes the total value of 
this branch of industry. Beet sugar districts become so enriched that far greater 
amounts of the cereals and other products of agriculture are obtained than be- 
fore beet factories were known. 
The growing of the beet requires rotation, as well as thorough culture and 
careful weeding. It would therefore be a boon of untold value to our wheat- 
producing districts of the west, which are decreasing year by year in returns for 
labor expended from these causes, and the additional neglect of stock growing. 
A promising beginning in beet-sugar making has been commenced in Chats- 
worth, Illinois, and fine samples of its sugar may be seen in the museum of this 
department. A history of this enterprise will hereafter be given. It has, of 
course, met with difficulties, surrounded by new circumstances, with high rates 
of labor and interest on money, which will all, I have no doubt, be eventually 
overcome. Many individuals and companies stand ready to engage in the bus- 
iness when its success upon our soil is fully demonstrated. ‘Then in the west, 
