422 On the State of the Manufacture 
parts—the sugar, the residuum or marc of the beet, and the 
melasses. In general the beet furnishes from three to four per 
cent. of raw sugar, and sometimes even from four to five. The 
quantity varies according to the state of the weather and the 
expertness of those who work in the establishment. Supposing 
only three per cent. is extracted, the 10 thousand weight of 
beet will then produce 300 Ibs, of raw sugar, which, reckoning 
the daily expense of 200 franes, brings the price of the raw sugar 
to about 13 sous, or 65 centimes per pound. Besides the pro- 
duce of the sugar, there is another which deserves consideration 5 
this is the cuttings and the residuum of the beet after the juice 
is expressed from it. The cuttings, as we have before observed, 
compose nearly a tenth part of the weight of the beet; they 
consist of the tops, the radicles, and the earth that adheres to 
them. On a thousand weight of cuttings, off 10 thousand of 
beet, there is at least a good half which is excellent food for 
pigs, who are very fond of it. The residuum or marc is a still 
more important article: supposing 70 per cent. of juice to be 
extracted, the 10 thousand weight daily cousumed furnishes 
1500 kilogrammes, or about 30 quintals, of marc, which is a very 
valuable food for horned cattle. This food, which is nearly dry, 
has none of the inconveniences of herbs or aqueous rocts, or of 
dry fodder; it produces no putrefaction like the first, and does 
not heat them, or occasion obstructions, like the latter; it con- 
tains almost all the nutritive principles of the beet, being de- 
prived of only about 60 per cent. of water, three of sugar, and 
a little extract and gelatine; oxen, cows, and poultry are very 
fond of it, and it fattens them better than anv other food; sheep 
and milch cows that are fed with it give much more milk, and of 
-an excellent quality. Thus an establishment of the magnitude 
of the one I am speaking of, may fatten annually from 50 to 60 
oxen, or from four to five huudred sheep, with the residuum 
only. 
The melasses is a third product not to be overlooked ; a thou- 
sand weight of bect will produce nearly 240. pounds, which may 
be sold at the rate of ten or fifteen frances the quintal, or the 
fifty kilogrammes; or it may be retained to be fermented and. di- 
stilled in order to extract the alcohol. When the melasses is kept 
for distillation, it is diluted with water till the liquor marks from 
seven to nine degrees; it is then carefully mixed with yeast, or 
the leaven of barley paste, tempered with warm water, in the 
proportion of two pounds of the first-mentioned to ten quintals 
of liquid, and six pounds of the last-mentioned, The vessels 
that contain the fermenting liquor should be placed in a stove, 
where the heat is constantly from sixteen to eighteen degrees of 
the centigrade thermometer; the fermentation soon appears, 
and 
