PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 789 



duction, and executing by hand several heav}^ and tedious opera- 

 tions, which ought to ho performed hy steam, water or horse 

 power, cainiot furnish accurate data for determining the expense 

 of making beet sugar. The actual cost, M'hen the material was 

 good, has been eleven cents per pound, the pulp and manure not 

 taken into account. We are of opinion that, with proper and 

 sufficient means, beet sugar may be manufactured in the United 

 States at four cents per pound. When the manufacture shall have 

 become domesticated among us, it will probably be produced at a 

 cost less than that." 



In relation to the effect of a beet crop on succeeding crops, Mr. 

 Child says : '* In Northampton, wheat has succeeded beets the pre. 

 sent season with rather striking success. A farmer let a field 

 abutting on Connecticut river on shares. On a part of it he raised 

 beets last year, and on the other Indian corn. The whole was. 

 equally manured. The corn yielded seventy-five bushels to the 

 acre, and the beets were tolerably weeded. The wheat was har- 

 vested, and his share delivered in the barn without any attention 

 to it on his part. In due time a laborer was employed to thrash 

 it. This person, after thrashing a quantity, observed to his 

 employer that the wheat on one side of the loft thrashed easier, 

 and had a better berry and brighter straw, than on the other. 

 Upon examination, it was found that the former had been produced 

 upon the beet, and the latter upon the corn, section of the field, 

 but with this difierence, that the beet grew nearest to the river, 

 where it is considered that wheat is most likely to blast. We had 

 the advantaixe of examining these wheats, and the difference was 

 clearly such as the thrasher had stated. The proprietor found a 

 difference of three and a half pounds per bushel in the weight. 

 We presume that the difference in the flour would be found much 

 greater, because the grains of the infei-ior wheat being smaller, it. 

 would require more of them to fill a measure ; and as the shrunk 

 grains have the same quantity of skin as the large, and as it is the 

 skins which make bran, it follows that the superiority remarked 

 Avould appear still more signally if the two samples were ground 

 and bolted." 



Mr. Child, in a note, remarks : " Mr. Harrison O. Apthorp, of 

 Northampton — one of the earliest cultivators of the sugar beet in 

 this country — has informed us of the remarkable growth of herds- 

 grass as a successor of sugar beets on his grounds. The crop was- 



