CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 131 



CHAPTEE VII. 

 MANUFACTURE— PROCESSES AND ECONOMIES. 



The rapid decrease in the values of sugar has rendered necessary the 

 strictest economy in all the modes and apparatus employed in separating 

 it, and every possible means that has been devised for reducing the cost 

 of securing the sugar is being adopted. 



This is evident iu the relations between the producer and manufacturer 

 that have already been discussed. But in the work directly under the 

 control of the manufacturer there are three sections which have claimed 

 the attention of progressive men, and in which the greatest economy and 

 improvement have been attained. These are methods for reducing the 

 cost of transportation of the raw product to the mill, and securing a 

 larger quantity to be worked at each establishment; for securing from 

 the roots a larger quantity of juice at a reduced cost for labor and ma- 

 chinery; and for saving the sugar lost in the molasses, which has here- 

 tofore been utilized in the distillery to the loss of the sugar manufacturer. 



In the first of the methods for reducing the general cost of sugar pro- 

 duction we have the system devised by Linard for the subterranean 

 transport of juice through pipe lines, by which it is possible to establish 

 small works for the extraction of the juice in sections in which it would 

 be impossible to secure supplies for a factory of capacity sufficient to 

 insure economical and profitable working, and to provide a cheap and 

 ready way of sending the juice extracted to a central factory of large 

 capacity and with the consequent appliances for separating the sugar at 

 a minimum cost, and at the same time leave the pulp in the immediate 

 neighborhood of the producer, who finds in this waste product a source 

 of profit in its well-known value as cattle food. Maumene has given, in 

 his Traite de la Fabrication du Sucre, page 207, &c, a description of the 

 system which is so complete that we consider it of value to give a trans- 

 lation of it here. His description is as follows : 



To the extraction of the juice is attached a new method we are about to describe, 

 that of the subterranean transport of the juice. This is not a special means for 

 extracting the juice but simply a means of procuring beets from very great dis- 

 tances without an excess of the cost confined within the prescribed limits. The juice 

 never representing more than 80 per cent, of the beet, its transportation would com- 

 prise at most four-fifths of the ordinary cost; besides, the flow of the juice in a tube 

 may take place with no cost except the expense of purchase and placing of the pipe, 

 when there is sufficient fall between the rasping-works and the factory. But without 

 such very rare conditions only a pump and a little steam-power will be needed to 

 overcome the resistance in the tubes themselves or counter inclinations. In fact, this 

 mode of transport offers a more or less decided economy upon the ordinary method, 

 and it has the especially enormous advantage of being always practicable when ordi- 

 nary transportation may be arrested in default of horses, drivers, or even by bad roads. 

 Besides, the profit resulting from the non-transportation of the pulp is doubled by a 

 possibly greater benefit, that of delivering the pulp to the grower in the best condi- 

 tion at the same place to which he brings his beets, and in a covered place, with no 

 intermediate charging or discharging, as occurs in the usual system, especially on the 



