62 BEET-ROOT SUGAR AND 



ascertain fairly the price at which it could be pro- 

 duced. 



In 1863-4 the brothers Gennert, of New York, con- 

 ceived the idea of manufacturing beet sugar. Mr. 

 Thomas Gennert visited Europe for the purpose of 

 studying the methods there employed. Upon his 

 return, the firm selected the prairie lands in the town 

 of Chatsworth, Livingston County, Illinois, pur- 

 chased 2300 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, containing twelve and 

 a half per cent, in sugar. The heavy outlay required 

 exhausted their means ; or, to use their own words, 

 " We started on too large a scale for our purse, which 

 gave out too soon, before the machinery which was 

 required for a successful working was finished ; but 

 experience has shown us sufficiently that sugar enough 

 is contained in the beets, and that it can be got out. 

 With our imperfect, or rather incomplete, machinery, 

 we extracted seven per cent, in melado. Those beets 

 would average, with complete machinery, nine per 

 cent." 



The Messrs. Gennert have put theif property into 

 a stock company, called the " Germania Sugar Com- 

 pany," and have six hundred acres of land in cultiva- 

 tion with beets this season. 



I submit their estimate of the profits of working 

 one hundred tons of beets per day, with the following 

 productions of sugar, on a capital of $200,000 : 



