150 APPENDIX. 



I learned from Mr. Gennert the following particulars of the 

 difiicultities they have met with in carrying on their opera- 

 tions since harvest : 



In the first place, their machinery, instead of being com- 

 pleted during the summer, so as to be ready for work by the 

 time when the beets were ripe (in September), was only got 

 in starting order by the 5th of December last. They then 

 commenced operations with green inexperienced hands, and 

 during the first few days made very slow progress, notwith- 

 standing the beets were found to work and yield well. 



After five days of work, December loth, the vacuum-pan 

 collapsed, which misfortune entirely stopped all work until a 

 new pan could be obtained. This was ready with the be- 

 ginning of the new year, when they commenced again, only 

 to meet with new discouragements. First, the supply of 

 water proved to be inadequate to their requirements, and 

 steps were immediately taken to deepen the wells, so as to 

 reach below the hard pan, and they expect now to have ob- 

 tained a full supply of water. The next, and to a sugar man- 

 ufacturer the most serious difficulty of all, was a too limited 

 supply of steam, which they were trying to remedy at the 

 time I was there. They have depended on five two-flue boil- 

 ers, which were not well set, the smoke being carried through 

 a narrow breach flue into a narrow and low sheet-iron smoke- 

 stack ; the entire arrangement being not well adapted for the 

 proper consumption of the Lasalle or Fairbury coal. The 

 workmen about the place seemed to think the insufficient 

 supply of steam the main drawback to success. In all other 

 respects the works appear to be well appointed. They are 

 built to run on the centrifugal system, and are provided with 

 clarifiers, scum-presses, bone-black filters, retorts, vacuum- 

 pan, and such other machinery as is generally found in a 

 manufactory of this class. 



All machinery is of modern construction and well adapted 

 to the work. The capacity of the manufactory is estimated 

 to be equal to 50 tons of beets per day. During the few days 

 the works have been in operation they have turned out about 

 eighteen thousand pounds of sugar (two thirds of which was 



