790 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



pronounced by the oldest farmers in Northampton village superior 

 to any of the kind they had ever seen in the meadows." 



Several years ago beet sugar, of very fine quality, was made by 

 the society of Shakers, at Enfield, but upon too small a scale, and 

 by too crude a method, to ascertain fairly the price at which it 

 could be produced. 



In 1803-4, the jjrothers Gennert, of New York, conceived the 

 idea of manufacturing beet sugar. Mr. Thomas Gennert visited 

 Europe for the purpose of studj-ing the methods there employed. 

 Upon his return, the firm selected the prairie lands in the town of 

 Chatsworlh, Livingston county, Illinois, purchased 2,300 acres, 

 erected buildings, and commenced the cultivation of beets. In 

 process of time they gathered their crop, which, owing to the 

 drought, and also to the unfavorable method of planting, yielded 

 only ten or twelve tons to the acre. The beets were of excellent 

 saccharine properties, pontaining twelve and a half per cent, in 

 suo-ar. The^ heavy outlay required exhausted their means ; or, to 

 use their owm words: "We started on too large a scale for our 

 purse, W'bich gave out too soon, l)efore the machinery, which was 

 required for a successful working, was finished ; but experience 

 has shown us sufiiciently that sugar enough is contained in the 

 beets, and that it can be got out. With our imperfect or rather 

 incomplete machinery, we extracted ^even per cent, in melado. 

 Those beets would average, with complete machinery, nine per 

 cent." 



The Messrs. Gennert have put their properly into a stock com- 

 pany, called the " Germania Sugar Company," and have six hun- 

 dred acres of land in cultivation with beets this season. 



I submit their estimate of the profits of w'orking one hundred 

 tons of beets per day, with the following productions of sugar on 

 a capital of $200,000 : 



At 6 per cent _ 73 per cent profit. 



At 7 per cent _ 91 per cent profit. 



At 8 per cent __ 109 per cent profit. 



. At 9 per cent 127 per cent profit. 



General Advantages of Beet Sugar Manufacture. 

 The "Journal des Fabricants de Sucre," in its issue of Decem- 

 ber 8, 18G4, says: "We find that the abolition of slavery in 

 America and the West India Islands, which seems to us the inevi- 

 table result of the America war, at the same time that it increases 



