10 The Sugar-Beet in America 



which remained contained sugar in solution and also a 

 resinous matter which he abstracted by evaporation." 



First commercial extraction of beet-sugar. 



Karl Franz Achard, son of a French refugee in Prussia, 

 was the first to extract sugar from beets on a conuner- 

 cial scale. He had been a student of Marggraf, who had 

 turned his attention to the beet as a source of sugar. 

 After the death of his teacher in 1782, Achard devoted 

 himself faithfully to perfecting methods of extracting the 

 sugar. The laboratory methods were too expensive to 

 be used on a large scale. In 1797, after fifteen years of 

 work, he announced his methods, and two years later 

 presented them and samples of sugar to the Institute of 

 France. His statements brought forth considerable 

 ridicule, but the Institute was sufficiently aroused to ap- 

 point a commission of nine leading scientists of France to 

 investigate the whole problem of extracting sugar from 

 beets. On January 25, 1800, the commission made its 

 report, which, on the whole, was favorable to Achard, 

 although it doubted some of his claims. 



In the meantime, the producers of cane-sugar had be- 

 come alarmed and feared that some of their profits might 

 be lost. It is reported that in 1796 a society in England 

 offered Achard $30,000 if he would abandon his work 

 and make the world believe his attempts had not been a 

 success. Two years later a new offer of $120,000 was 

 made and refused. An attempt was then made to destroy 

 interest in beet-sugar through Sir Humphry Davy, the 

 celebrated English chemist. He said that while sugar 

 could be obtained from beets, it was too sour for food. 



