336 On the State of ihe Manufacture 
In March 1813 I wished to use some beet which I had stored 
in a cellar, and obtained from it only nitrate of potash, al- 
though it was neither decayed nor had germinated; this beet 
yielded less juice by one-third, than that which had been kept 
in the open air, or in magazines well aired. 
It is not uncommon for puffs of nitrous gas to come out of 
the abundant skim which forms when the juice of the beet is 
poured into a boiler; the production of this gas discovers the 
commencement of a change in the beet, although in this state 
sugar may still be extracted from it: I have several times ob- 
served this phenomenon, and always in the circumstances above 
mentioned. -By the progress of the alteration this nitrous gas 
passes to the state of nitric acid, this acid unites with the pet- 
ash and forms nitrates, and then the decomposition of the cry- 
stallizable sugar is completed. i 
We must not be surprised then if in the whole of the south, 
from Bordeaux to Lyons, it is found that beet which has re~ 
mained in the ground until the end of October, will afford only 
nitrate of potash, and not an atom of crystallizable sugar. As 
the beet-roots are pulled up, the leaves should be stripped off 
and left on the ground for manure, when there is not enqueh of 
them for the consumption of cattle. 
Beet is as soon injured by frost as by heat: it is frezen at a 
temperature of one degree below zero of Reaumur; and begins 
to germinate and change at a temperature of eight or nine de- 
grees above it. 
In order to keep beet in a proper state it should be stored in 
a dry place, of a temperature a few degrees above zero of the 
thermometer. A barn or granary are very proper places for a 
magazine of this nature; but it is seldom that the whole quan- 
tity can be lodged in one building ; for want of a covered place 
sufficiently spacious it must often be left in the open air, and 
when this is the case a dry piece of ground must be selected, 
which is not subject to be overflowed; on this ground a bed of 
stones should be laid, and on the stones a layer of straw; in 
the middle should be raised a stake, and bunches of straw placed 
round it that reach to the top; round this the beet should be 
heaped, till it forms a square of seven or eight feet by five or six 
in height. The stake is afterwards to be taken away, so that the 
space which it occupied may form a sort of chimney to give 
egress to the vapours that escape from the beet. The sides and 
the top must then be covered with a bed of straw, the top being 
made to incline, that the rain may not fall in or remain upon it 5 _ 
and the whole should be confined by bands that the wind may 
not have power to disturb the straw. Some cultivators, espe- — 
cially in the north, preserve their beet by heaping it in the fields, 
covering 
