PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 793 



abstain from entertaining its readers Avitli accounts of the precious 

 plant, and there is no farmer who does not introduce it into his 

 fields with the view of its conversion either into sugar or alcohol. 

 Everybody sings its praises; and surely none have a better right 

 to join in the concert than we, who have always been its advocates 

 for the sake of the industry Avith which it is allied." 



A French writer, after having demonstrated the importance of 

 the beet-sugar industry to agriculture, in urging its extension, 

 says: "Who would believe that England, with her poor soil, her 

 wet climate, and her pale sun, could produce crops of grain double 

 ours, and that the yield of her fields surpassed that of the luxuriant 

 plains of Lombardy? The perfection of her agriculture explains 

 this wonderful production. So does the progress of the manufac- 

 ture of beet sugar explain how the cultivator of the north can 

 extract as much sugar from a hectare of his cold and wet land, as 

 the indolent Creole from the rich soil of the Antilles, bathed in 

 sweet odors and in sunshine." 



The basis of the agriculture of England is the turni^D. In the 

 best cultivated districts of France, it is the beet. M. Barral, a 

 celebrated writer on agriculture, says, "I did not find any good 

 crops except in those countries where an industrial culture pre- 

 vailed, which is especially the case in those where the beet is culti- 

 vated." 



Another writer says, " Of all species of industry which it is 

 desiraft)le to see extended in France, the manufacture of sugar and 

 alcohol occupies the first rank. Branches of industry which are 

 pursued in the winter deserve to be supported, because they give 

 employment to laborers who work in the fields in the summer, 

 and thereby enable them to increase the amount of their yearly 

 wages." 



Another writer says, that "all cultivators and economists are 

 unanimous in recommending the cultivation of the sugar-producing 

 plant, which is the source of deep tillage, heavy manuring, and 

 increased production. No one believes now that it exhausts and 

 impoverishes the soil, or that it hurts other crops : these are the 

 prejudices of a by-gone age, which science and practice have ban- 

 ished, to set up in their place a recognition of benefits of the 

 highest order produced by the culture of the beet." 



M. Dureau says, "The manufacture of beet sugar was formerly 

 charged with being a local industry. To-day it no longer deserves 

 that reproach, for it is not alone in the north of France that it is 



