428 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



the quantity and quality of the sugar. When roots are to be kept awhile before being 

 worked up, it will also cause them to decay. Beets for this purpose may also be preserved 

 in pits, or stored in various ways, the same as other root crops, but it is generally better for 

 the farmer to dispose of them at once to the manufacturer, thus avoiding the labor and loss 

 that may attend the storage. They are sometimes frozen and kept in that condition until 

 wanted for use, but this practice is not to be recommended, since there is a liability of loss 

 occasioned by their thawing out by a change of weather before being used ; besides, the 

 freezing process has a tendency to deteriorate the sugar product. 



The Manufacture of Sugar from Beets is a complicated process, a detailed 

 description of which would require more space than the limits of this work devoted as it is 

 to such a variety of subjects will admit; we shall, therefore, in this connection, be able to 

 give, as it were, only an outline of the process, while we would refer those of our readers who 

 desire more specific directions and information with regard to it to some treatise of standard 

 authority, devoted exclusively to this subject. 



The first operation in sugar-making from beets is to cleanse the roots thoroughly from 

 all particles of soil that may adhere to them. This is effected by various means, the most 

 common being a revolving drum of open iron or wood-work submerged in water. The next 

 step in the process is to extract the juice. 



This may be done also by various methods. Sometimes the cleansed roots are reduced 

 to a pulp by a rotary rasping-machine, which revolves with great velocity, after which the 

 pulp is then put in bags or sacks, and subjected to a powerful pressure, thus expressing the 

 juice, or it may be macerated in water, thus extracting the saccharine matter. 



Another method is in exhausting the pulp by means of a centrifugal machine, the largest 

 portion of the juice being thrown out by its rapid revolutions, after which water is applied 

 and the remainder of the juice washed out in the same manner. 



Diffusion is another process, and one which has been extensively practiced in many of 

 the beet-sugar manufactories of Europe. The beets are by this method cut into thin, narrow 

 strips by a cutting-machine which revolves with great rapidity. Water is then used, in con 

 nection with a diffusion battery, in extracting the juice. 



In some batteries for this purpose, the cylinders are so connected by tubes that the 

 liquids can be passed from any one of them to another, the same liquid being used repeatedly 

 for different quantities of the beet, thus increasing its richness, and economizing in the evap 

 oration. In others, the ribbons, or thin slices of the beet-root, are made to pass through a 

 current of water which is moving in an opposite direction, and which will have a tendency to 

 wash out a large portion of the sugar element of the juice. Various appliances have been 

 employed on this principle, differing in their methods of construction and operation. 



The advantage of diffusion over other methods consists mainly in obtaining a purer 

 quality of juice than by other processes, since the cells of the beet or cane are not fractured, 

 and the albuminoids and other substances, injurious to the sugar product, are not extracted. 



The next process after extracting the juice, is to clarify or cleanse it of all impurities 

 contained within it, and which would injure the quality of the product, and prevent crystal 

 lization. This is accomplished by heat and the use of lime, a process similar to that of defec 

 ating the juice of cane; after which the excess of lime and other substances contained in it 

 are precipitated, and the caustic alkalies carbonated by the use of carbonic acid gas. Various 

 other means, some of them of a complicated nature, may also be employed to accomplish this 

 purpose. Filtration is the next step in the process of sugar manufacturing. This is accom 

 plished by the use of bone-black, which is the charcoal of the bones of animals. 



The hot juice of the beets is made to pass through a long column of pulverized bone- 

 black, which removes the coloring matter contained in it; also, purifies it from other sub 

 stances contained in it which are injurious to the sugar. It is next evaporated to a thin 



