BEET ROOT SUGAR. 209 



" It has been shown that it is better to use too 

 much than too little lime in defacation. Both are 

 stated to be evils, and, yet of the two evils the for- 

 mer is the least. After having operated on the extra- 

 neous matter in the sugar, it then begins to act on the 

 sugar itself. 



" Defacation by lime alone, then, has this grand 

 inconvenience, that a part of the sugar is destroyed 

 io save the other. In this process, in fact when this 

 syrup is run into moulds, it produces an abundant 

 crystalization ; and the molasses which comes from 

 it more rapidly than by any other method, has a very 

 disagreeable taste and smell : it has but little sweet- 

 ness ; and if by any known process a second crystal- 

 ization be attempted, not an atom of sugar can be 

 obtained from it. Nay, more the sugar partakes 

 of the bad taste and smell of the molasses, and is 

 thereby rendered unsaleable in the market. 



u It is a pity that the defacation by lime presents 

 these inconveniences, for it is the mode of all others 

 the simplest, and best adapted to common farm es- 

 tablishments. It is, indeed, on this account that many 

 manufacturers who have adopted it continue still to 

 use it, notwithstanding the inferiority it presents, 

 both as to quality and quantity of its results as com- 

 pared with those of other and more complicated 

 methods." 

 18* 



