APPENDIX B. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET AND 

 THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR THEREFROM IN THE UNITED STATES OF 

 AMERICA. 



Notwithstanding the progress that has heen made in Europe in the culture of the 

 sugar beet and the manufacture of beet-root sugar, and immensity and value of the 

 industry it has supplied to European nations, the knowledge and experience resulting 

 has not been applied in such a way in the United States as to make the production of 

 sugar from this source a matter of any commercial or industrial importance, although 

 attempts at the introduction of the industry have not been wanting. In most cases the 

 attempts, which have had varying success or rather failure, seem to have been origi- 

 nated and guided by enthusiasm rather than by sound judgment, based upon a pre- 

 vious close study of all the conditions which should influence or absolutely govern 

 the success or failure of the enterprise. This is very evident from a review of the 

 records we have of the various experiments which have been made both on a large 

 and a small scale. 



The iirst experiment made by two enterprising Philadelphians as early as 1330, 

 was almost cotemporaneous with the final firm establishment of the industry in 

 France and the great interest manifested in it there, but it seems that these gentle- 

 men were wholly ignorant of the requirements either of the culture of the root or 

 the extraction of sugar, aud failure was the natural result of their efforts. 



Eight years later, David Lee Child, who had spent a year and a half in the beet- 

 growing districts of Europe in careful study of all the requirements, both of culture 

 and manufacture', undertook in a small way the production of beet-root sugr.r at 

 Northampton, Mass. He was attracted by the method of drying the roots that had 

 lately been invented by Schutzenbach, both for the purpose of preserving them and 

 for facilitating the extraction of sugar, but being unable to obtain from Schutzenbach 

 any information concerning the details of the method unless he would purchase the ex- 

 clusive right to use in the United States, and give security for payment in case success 

 should be obtained in a model factory, Mr. Child operated the method with appa- 

 ratus of his own device, by means of which he was able, with a temperature of 150° to 

 185° Fahr., to dry 890 pounds in twenty-four hours. The dried product was gnrand, 

 treated with three times its weight of water, and subjected to pressure, giving, it 

 was said, a liquid twice as rich in sugar as the ordinary juice of the beet. In his 

 little work entitled The Culture of the Beet and the Manufacture of Beet Sugar, Mr. 

 Child informs us that the cost of culture in the Connecticut River Valley was, in 

 1838 to 1839, $42 per acre, with an average yield of 13 to 15 tons ; that the crop 

 yielded 6 per cent, of sugar and 2£ per cent, of molasses, and the cost of the sugar 11 

 cents per pound, pulp and manure not taken into account. But he does not mention 

 the surface sown in beets nor the quantity worked up. From other sources, however, 

 we learn that the quantity of sugar obtained was 1,300 pounds. 



The interest in the beet-sugar industry in the United States seems to have been quite 

 dormant, or at least not sufficiently strong to manifest itself in active work, and its 

 subsequent history, which, as before stated, was a rather checkered one, began in 1863 

 with the inauguration of the well-known enterprise at Chatsworth, HI., by the Gen- 

 nert Brothers, formerly of Braunschweig, Germany, and later of New York City, 

 which, on account of the ill-chosen location as regards soil and climate, really the 



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