212 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
auspices of a company of capitalists, who had invested $250,000 in the 
enterprise. The initial results of this movement were so flattering as 
to give rise to some extravagant anticipations. One enthusiastic jour- 
nalist predicted that in five years California would be a sugar-exporting 
State. The Alvarado company now occupy a three-story building, 150 
feet long by 50 feet wide, with a boiler-house 59 feet by 50, and a bone- 
coal house 75 feet by 40. The machinery is sufficient to work up fifty 
tons of beets per day. The motive power is furnished by four tubular 
steam-boilers, each 16 feet long and 54 inches in diameter. These drive 
the three steam-engines, of which two are 14 by 30, (first-class finish,) 
and one 16 by 12. The apparatus embraces vacuum pans, saturation 
pans, air-pumps, filters, filter-pumps, beet-prater, beet-washing machine, 
beet-breaking machine, tanks for elevating sirup and sugar from one 
floor to another, and a number of sheet-iron tanks for various purposes. 
An abundant supply of shafting, pulleys, pipes, pumps, and other 
fittings incidental to a complete sugar manufactory and refinery have 
been provided, enabling the company to transform the beets into fine 
granulated sugar within twenty-four hours after their reception. 
Through delay in receiving that portion of the machinery which had 
been ordered from Germany, the manufactory did not commence opera- 
tions until Tuesday, November 15,1870. On the following Thursday 
many friends of the enterprise assembled to witness the first turn-oeut 
of sugar. Anxiety and unbelief were the prevailing expression, both 
of voice and of countenance, as, at 10 o’clock a. m., the contents of one 
of the large pans were emptied into one of the sugar centrifugals and 
set in revolution. In less than three minutes the white sugar began to 
erystallize, doubt gave way to enthusiasm, and all present pronounced 
the sugar superior to cane sugar. Some allowance, however, must be 
made for the excitement of the occasion. 
In this establishment the beets are first thoroughly washed in a eyl- 
inder composed of slats, one end of which is depressed in a tank of 
water. By revolution upon its axis, the beets, rubbing constantly upon 
each other in the water, are thoroughly cleansed by the time they reach 
the lower end. They are then elevated to the grater, a formidable piece 
of machinery upon the third floor, furnished with arasp which revolves 
1,500 times per minute. Against this rasp the bright, clean roots are 
pressed, and in a very short time are reduced to a fine watery pulp, 
which is then drawn off into the centrifugals below. Of these there are 
ten, each revolving 1,200 times per minute, and thoroughly separating, 
by their rapid movement, the juice from the pulp. The former passes 
through large troughs into defecating pans; the latter is removed through 
a spout into the dried-pulp room below. In the defecating pans the 
impurities of the juice are absorbed by a preparation of lime; thence it 
runs into two close upright boilers, called by the French montejus. These 
are located on the lower floor, and by steam pressure elevate the juice 
to large filter-presses in the second story. It then passes into the satu- 
rating pans, where the lime, previously absorbed in the clarifying pro- 
cess, is eliminated by an infusion of carbonic acid gas. It is then 
filtered through animal charcoal, whence it passes into two evaporating 
pans, and is subjected to a boiling heat till it reaches the proper con- 
sistency. It is then drawn off into iron tanks to cool and crystallize ; 
after which it is placed in an open upright cylinder, in which an iron 
axle with projecting arms slowly revolves, mingling the entire mass 
into a sort of heavy molasses. The sirup is then expelled by a rapid 
revolution in four sugar centrifugals, the residuum being “ first-class” 
sugar, ready for market. The ejected sirup is again placed in the cen- 
