776 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



would be fourteen per emit from cane and four per cent from 

 beet. Mr. E. B. Grant said he knew of twelve per cent having 

 been o-ot from beet, the more general yield being eight and a half 

 per cent. More sugar is produced from beet than from equal 

 quantities of cane. In France the cost of manufacture is about 

 from $3.20 to $3.80 per ton, and the beet is worth $3.25 per ton. 

 To ascertain the profit of the manufacture in this country is a very 

 simple sum: 1000 tons of beets at $4.00 per ton, and cost of man- 

 ufacture $4.00 per ton — total cost for one thousand tons, $8,000; 

 the amount of stock will produce sixty tons of sugar wortk $300 

 per ton — total value, $18,000. 



The chairman said, the gentleman who has just addressed the 

 association has visited Europe for the purpose of informing him- 

 self on the manufacture of beet sugar. The results of his obser- 

 yations are embraced in a work published by Lee & tjheppard, 

 Boston, 1866, entitled, "Beet Root Sugar, and the Cultivation of 

 the Beet." It would gratify the meeting if the gentleman would 

 enter more fully into the details of this manufacture. 



Mr. Grant then took the floor, and the following embraces what 

 he has said and written on the points discussed : 



Cost of Beet Sugar in France. 



There are various methods of making sugar from beets employed 

 in Europe, of which the following are but a part: 



The old method of rasping, pressing, treating with lime, evap- 

 orating in open boilers, crystallizing in large moulds or in pans, 

 draining and crushing. 



This method, in some factories, is modified by the introduction 

 of the vacuum pan. In others the centrifugal machine takes the 

 place of the slower method of moulds and of pans, for the pur- 

 pose of throwing oif the molasses. 



In other estabishments, instead of using hydraulic presses, juice 

 is extracted from the pulp in centrifugal machine^, in which large 

 quantities of water are used. * 



In others the "process of diffusion," so called, by which the 

 beets are cut into thin slices, and the saccharine matter exhausted 

 by steeping them in water in a series of vessels. 



In others the " process of maceration" is applied to small 

 slices of beets, called " cossettes," which ave dried and then steeped 

 in Witter in a range of "macerators." In others there is a singfe 

 saturation with carbonic acid gas after defecation. 



