1904-5.] THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES OF THE DOMINION. 177, 
Beet sugar factories have also been established in Alberta, in the 
North-West Terr:tories of Canada. Since 1893, an area of about 300,000 
acres has been made productive by means of the irrigation system of the 
Canadian North-West Irrigation Company, and a portion of this area 
has been utilized for beet cultivation, principally by the Mormon settlers. 
The most important factory has been established by the Knight Sugar 
Company at Raymond, south of Lethbridge, on the Canadian Pacific 
Railway. The capital of this company is $1,000,000. The area intended 
to be planted with beets is 3,000 acres, and the daily capacity of the 
factory will be 400 tons of beets per day. The only difficulty which the 
industry is encountering in the North-West is the scarcity of labour.>® 
This is due partly to the scanty settlement of the country, and partly to the 
superior attractions of the mining regions, which are situated at no great 
distance. 
A plentiful water supply, lime, and source of power, are necessary for 
the profitable prosecution of the industry; all this has been carefully 
considered in locating the factories enumerated above, steam power being 
employed for pumping and the working of all machinery. There is room 
for many more factories in the Dominion; according to Dr. A. B. Shuttle- 
worth, Chief Agriculturalist to the Ontario Sugar Company, whose name 
is indissolubly connected with the development of beet cultivation, it 
would require over thirty refineries each of 600 tons capacity to supply the 
home market alone.® 
The working season of a factory runs for about 100 days, operating 
continuously. The cost of the sugar is from three to three and a half 
cents per pound, and the profits to the makers are estimated at fifty cents 
per ton of beets used. This would mean that in a factory of 500 tons 
capacity, working for 100 days, the profits would amount to $25,000. 
The scope of this article does not allow of any detailed consideration 
of the working process by which the sugar is extracted frm the | sliced 
beets and crystalized. New proceses are being employed for utilizing 
the residual molasses. ‘This is treated for the recovery of the sugar in some 
part, and also for the production of alcohol by fermentation. An Ameri- 
can company in 1901 produced g15,o00 gallons of alcohol in this way, 
of a quality considered to be quite equal to the grain product. Another 
new process is that of the manufacture of syrup from the beet instead 
of sugar; forty gallons of thiscan be obtained from a ton of beets, which, 
at thirty cents a gallon, means a return of $12 per ton of material used, 
while the product in sugar yields only from $7 to $8 per ton of beets. The 
° (59) Letter from Manager of works at Raymond. 
(60) Berlin News Record, Nov. 8, 1902. 
