128 RURAL DENMARK 



screw apparatus to another level. Hence they fall 

 into buckets, arranged upon an endless chain, that 

 deliver them to the cutters of grooved steel, not un- 

 like combs in appearance, which reduce them to tiny 

 shreds. 



Near by these cutters is the refuse chamber into 

 which the said shreds, pressed of their water and 

 having given up their sugar, are delivered after 

 boiling to serve as food for cows. This schnetzel, as 

 it is called, is best for the cattle if eaten at from four 

 to five weeks after it leaves the factory, although I 

 understand that it can be stored for a year without real 

 injury. The men who deal with the schnetzel in the 

 chamber I have mentioned are paid at the com- 

 paratively high rate of 6 kroner (say 6s. 9d.) a day, 

 as the work is very damp and cold. 



The shredded beet fall on to an endless steam- 

 driven belt, which, by an ingenious arrangement very 

 difficult to describe, delivers them into whatever 

 boiler is ready for their reception. Alongside of 

 this belt stand men engaged in sharpening the cutting- 

 knives at grinding-stones which are also turned by 

 steam. 



The boilers are enormous tanks about 25 feet in 

 height. Here the beet-pulp is mixed with 2 per 

 cent, of lime that clarifies and refines it, which lime, 

 its office done, is subsequently removed again by 

 means of thicknesses of sacking. These serve as 

 strainers or filters, through which the expressed juice 

 is forced, the shredded refuse going in another 

 direction. From the boilers the purified extract is 

 delivered into a cylinder and thence into other 

 cylinders where it boils furiously in a vacuum, 

 thickening as it passes from cylinder to cylinder and 



