1 3 o RURAL DENMARK 



which it is used to warp. As the soil adhering to 

 the beet is very rich, by this means 20 acres of ex- 

 cellent land are created every year, while the factory 

 has the advantage of getting rid of an inconvenient 

 accumulation. It is by attention to details of this 

 sort that agricultural ventures are made to pay so well 

 in Denmark. I visited this swamp and saw the mud 

 flowing on to it. 



Escaping at length from the mill, which, interest- 

 ing as it was, is a most trying place to inspect on 

 account of the terrible heat, that is not made less 

 disagreeable by the sickly smell of the sugar, I was 

 taken to a great reservoir. This holds 80,000 cwt. 

 of beet, which fall from it into a channel of running 

 water that floats them to the mill and at the same 

 time partially washes them. Near to this channel 

 is another that carries the beet which arrive by sea. 

 Here also were trucks being loaded with the beet 

 refuse or schnetzeL 



I was informed that at this factory salt water is 

 only used to float the beet in, that for the final wash- 

 ing in the factory is fresh ; indeed no salt water enters 

 there. This interested me, as I understood, perhaps 

 wrongly, that in the sugar-beet mill which, I believe, 

 is in course of erection in Essex it is proposed to make 

 use of salt or brack water for most purposes. 1 The coal 

 used in the boilers at Nykjobing is English. 



The mill, as I have said, only runs for three months 

 in the year, during which time it employs four hundred 

 men who, except for certain special duties, are paid at 

 the rate of 5 kroner (5s. 6d.) a day. As these men are 



1 I now hear, to my great disappointment, that after all the scheme 

 for the erection of this Essex sugar-beet mill is said to have come to 

 nothing. H. R. H., February 191 1. 



