CROPS. 485 



It is not within my province to go into the subject of the 

 manufacture of sugar, farther than as it is connected with agri 

 culture. The greatest profits are realized where an individual 

 unites in himself the character of cultivator and manufacturer. 

 The pulp that remains, after the sugar is expressed, is employed 

 in the fatting of cattle and sheep. An eminent farmer, whose 

 cultivation was of the finest description, and who manufactured 

 a large amount of sugar, informed me, that he estimated his pulp, 

 for the feeding of cattle and sheep, as constituting seven-twen 

 tieths of the whole value of the crop. It was in June, in that 

 most beautiful agricultural country, French Flanders, when I 

 visited him ; and he was then using, and had large reservoirs of, 

 the pulp from the manufacture of the preceding autumn. This 

 he kept sweet and good in large vats, covered with sods and earth 

 so as completely to exclude the air, and guard against a change 

 of temperature. In this case, the beets were not rasped, but cut 

 into small and thin slices by a machine, and then exposed to a 

 hydrostatic pressure. Nothing could be finer than the samples 

 of sugar which he showed me ; and I admired, with great pleasure, 

 the high condition of his sheep and cattle fed upon the pulp. He 

 informed me that he obtained six per cent, of sugar from his 

 beets. The chemists say that the beet contains twelve per cent. 

 of saccharine matter, but the amount obtained does not ordinarily 

 exceed five per cent. Whether this proceeds from the imper 

 fection of the manufacture, further inquiries may determine. In 

 general, the farmers are not manufacturers, but sell their crude 

 product to the large manufacturers in their vicinity. In such 

 case, they usually make arrangements to receive back a portion 

 of the expressed pulp. If otherwise, it would clearly be an ex 

 hausting process. It is mentioned, that the pulp constitutes a 

 third of the weight of the crop. One hundred pounds of raw 

 sugar give seventy-five pounds of refined sugar, though it is 

 stated that, by a recent discovered process, the sugar is bleached 

 without being refined. 



The gentleman to whom I have referred above, states that the 

 manufacture of beet-sugar is at present a highly lucrative opera 

 tion. At first, when the ports were closed to foreign sugars, 

 prices were such, that, even with imperfect modes of manufac 

 ture, the business yielded a large profit. Afterwards, when the 

 sugar of the French West India colonies came into competition 

 41* 



