STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 167 



were very enthusiastic. Gentlemen, this is not a delusion; 

 it is the truth. All you want is the necessary information in or- 

 der to enable you to make the most beautiful sugar the earth has 

 ever produced, and it can be done on the broad prairies of Min- 

 nesota. Our friend Prof. Henry knows all about it. He tells 

 you that over in Wisconsin they have made sugar, using a little 

 pan, about thirty inches across; and according to their estimate 

 it only cost them about four cents per pound. 



I want to say a word about beets. In 1747 A. S. Marggrof, a 

 German chemist, declared that there was some sugar in beets. 

 It went for sixty years before his statement was confirmed by one 

 of his scholars, K. F. Achard, in 1799, who presented a sample 

 of sugar to the Institute of Prance. 



The Institute of France and other chemists continued experi- 

 ments confirming Achard' s statements up to 1810, when it had 

 become a necessity because of the war between England and 

 France that some means should be devised to procure a supply 

 of sugar for France. When this subject was again taken up by 

 M. Proust, an able chemist, who made sugar from grapes, and 

 M. Fouques, who found a means of bleaching it and giving it the 

 color of cane sugar. This new and interesting progress in de- 

 velopment of the discovery of Messrs. Marggroff and Achard 

 was brought to the attention of Napoleon by his minister of the 

 interior, and his majesty issued a decree that there should be 

 granted M. Proust $20, 000. and to M. Fouques $8,000, to estab- 

 lish this industry, and made M. Proust a knight of the Legion 

 of Honor, and on Aug. 18, 1810, the minister of the interior ad- 

 dressed the prefects of the different departments of France on 

 the subject, urging them everywhere to establish this new indus- 

 try. The closing paragraph of this letter of the minister was 

 as follows: ^'Let manufacturing establishments multiply every- 

 where. Let it be considered, M. le Prefect, that this is a sort of 

 war we are making against the enemies of the continent, and 

 which his majesty considers, more than any other sovereign, 

 worthy of recompense to those who make themselves promi- 

 nent in the ranks." This is the way the beet sugar industry be- 

 gan, and all the world knows what it is to-day; and sorghum 

 only wants a similar friend behind it to have a still more complete 

 success. 



Prof. Henry. You have not told how when Napoleon fell the 

 price of sugar fell. That is an important consideration in look- 

 ing at the history of the industry in that country. 



