CULTIVATION OF THE BEET. 



1-5 



To-day the French colonists have a protection on their 

 sugars in France of five francs the hundred kilogrammes 

 (about half a cent per pound). The beet-sugar man- 

 ufacturers have no protection, competing at a disad- 

 vantage with French colonial sugar, and upon equal 

 terms with the products of the rest of the world. 

 Notwithstanding this, the following figures show the 

 relative importance of the French traffic in native, 

 foreign, and colonial sugars in the year 1865-6 : 



Colonial importations, 76,103 tons. 



Foreign " 144,083 " 



Beet sugar manufactured, 270,000 " 



Beet sugar fifty-five per cent, of the total traffic. The 

 exportation of refined sugar for the same period was 

 114,150 tons, mostly of foreign and colonial sugars, 

 owing to the policy of the French government, which, 

 to encourage its commerce, accords an advantage to 

 the refiner of foreign sugar for exportation, leaving 

 the supply of the home consumption almost entirely 

 in the hands of the manufacturers of beet sugar. 



Except in the immediate vicinity of the seaboard 

 cities of France, no sugar is used but the beet. The 

 same is true of Germany. Not an ounce of any other 

 is consumed in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, 

 Leipsic, or Munich. 



In 1853-4 the high price of alcohol one hundred 

 and eighty-five francs the hectolitre (one dollar and 

 fifty-seven cents per gallon) induced some twenty 

 manufacturers of sugar to convert their factories into 

 distilleries, and in 1854-5 nearly one hundred more 

 pursued the same course. 



