18 CULTUKE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 



I shall, at a later date, report to your Majesty the results which these different at- 

 tempts promise. At this time, I con'fine myself to presenting the sugar made by M. 

 Deyeux. It iu no way differs from the refined sugar of the colonies. This test shows 

 what may he expected from this work as regards the quality of the material. I shall 

 now study carefully the means of determining to what extent this manufacture may 

 become ecouomical and the measures to be taken to render it general in the Depart- 

 ments of the north. 



MONTALIVET, 

 Minister of the Interior. 



It is to be remarked further that prizes were also offered by the Societe 

 d? Encouragement pour V Industrie Nationale for the production of sugar 

 from grapes or beets, the annual prize being 2,400 francs ($480) for the 

 best essay and sample, 1,000 francs ($200) for second best, and, on Feb- 

 ruary 20, 1811, it received, through its founder and then president, Count 

 Chaptal, a memoir upon the methods for the extraction of sugar from 

 beets, by M. Drappiez, a pharmacist at Lille, together with a loaf of 

 the sugar, of which he had been able to obtain 50 quintals by the method 

 he described. The committee on chemical arts of the society compared 

 the sample of sugar submitted by M. Drappiez with a sample of refined 

 cane sugar they were then able to obtain at a cost of 95 cents per En- 

 glish pound, and failed to detect the " slightest difference" between thern.^ 

 M. Drappiez obtained by his method a yield of 1.3 per cent., the cost of 

 which he estimated at 80 cents per pound. 



Shortly after this there appeared in the Moniteur of March 23, 1811, 

 a statement to the effect — 



That there had been presented to his Majesty several quintals of refined crystallized 

 beet-root sugar, having all the qualities of that of the cane; loaves of both kinds 

 have been mixed together, and it was impossible to distinguish between them. It 

 follows from the report of a commission charged with the examination of the differ- 

 ent means proposed to replace by indigenous processes the foreign productions so 

 costly to France, that 70,000 acres cultivated in beet roots would furnish the 30,000,000 

 of pounds necessary to our consumption. 



And two days later Napoleon issued the first decree, in which he pro- 

 vided for direct encouragement of the beet-sugar industry, and which 

 was as follows : 



Palace of the Tuilleries, March 25, 1811. 

 Napoleon, Emperor of the French, <fc. : 



Upon a report of a commission appointed to examine the means proposed to natural- 

 ize, upon the continent of our empire, sugar, indigo, cotton, and divers other pro- 

 ductions of the two Indies : 



Upon presentation made to us of a considerable quantity of beet-root sugar, refined, 

 crystallized, and possessing all the qualities and properties of cane sugar: 



Upon the presentation made to us at the council of commerce of a great quantity 

 of indigo, extracted from the plant woad, which our departments of the south pro- 

 duce in abundance, and which indigo has all the properties of the indigo of the two 

 Indies : 



Having reason to expect that by means of these two precious discoveries our empire 

 'will shortly be relieved from an exportation of 100,000,000 francs ($20,000/000) hith- 

 •erto necessary for supplying the consumption of sugar and indigo : 



We have decreed and do decree as follows : 



