98 



Mcnnifacture of Sugar from the Beet. 



Vol. IV. 



wishing to enter business, and casting about 

 for a suitable employment, I would say, where 

 will you find one more healthy, interesting, 

 or profitable ? An untrodden field is open 

 before you, with no fear of too many competi- 

 tors — no cause for alarm, lest your neighbor, 

 whose place of business might be better situ- 

 ated than your own, might draw away your 

 customers, or that the adjoining premi.-es 

 might be taken by some one, whose interests 

 will clash with yours — no dread, that the 

 present fashions might change, and leave you 

 with a heavy stock on your hands, or that a 

 new one might spring up, and call for fresh 

 purchases, which cannot, perhaps, be made 

 without sacrificing at auction the profits of 

 years. In the beet sugar business, every 

 neighbor is a friend ; and I have never seen 

 the observation verified in a more striking man- 

 ner, than amongst those engaged in that em- 

 ployment in France ; they form a distinct class 

 of agriculturists; many among them are men 

 of the highest attainments, and in the service 

 of the government, and of the first standing 

 in society. The success which now attends 

 the manufacture of sugar in France, where 

 considerably more than half the supply of the 

 whole country is made from the beet, is to be 

 attributed to the untiring perseverance of the 

 present Mons. Crespel Delisse, of Arras, and 

 Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragnsa — but 

 for these noble and scientific men, the busi- 

 ness would have sunk ; they, however, de. 

 termined to pursue it, through evil and througl 

 good report ; and the result has justified their 

 highest expectations. To the former of these 

 gentlemen, I owe a debt of gratitute, for the 

 kind and liberal manner in which he instruct- 

 ed me in his mode of working, at his fine es- 

 tablishment at Arras; a mode which was 

 considered, by a committee sent from Prussia 

 to examine the different methods pursued 

 throughout the sugar districts, superior to all 

 others, and by which he has accumulated 

 large property. 



The great diversity of employment-i con- 

 nected with the business of svgar growing, 

 renders it very delightful — first, there is the 

 agriculturist, with his improved machinery, 

 ploughs, harrows, scufflers, cultivators, drills. 



thoir food and other piirpcises, as also for protecting 

 the roots for winter feeding. 



I once knew a gentlenian who, in erectininr a long 

 row of warehouses, placed blank windows and doors 

 in every story, and arranfjed the internal parts so that, 

 in the event of the failure of the business in which at 

 that time he was engaged, they might readily be con- 

 verted into dwelling houses— the result justified his 

 prudence and foresight, for a war put an end to his im- 

 portations ; but the income which he now derives from 

 the rents of those houses makes ample amends for his 

 disappoititment— just so might it be with the culturi' 

 of the! bent for the purpose of manufacturing sugar; if 

 the enerit be relinquished, the expending of the root in 

 the rearing and fattening of slock, will prove a source 

 of ample profit and pleasure to all who are engaged in 

 it- J. P. 



&c., vieing with his neighbors, who shAi 

 grow the largest and the cleanest crops — then 

 the dairy-man, with his improved Durhams, 

 competing with all the world for quantity and 

 quality of milk, and fat veal and rich butter 

 — then the cattle feeder, with oxen of seven- 

 ty score ; and the feeder of sheep, and tlie 

 maker of house lamb, without the risk of rot 

 or scab; with his flock under his eye, and 

 managed with the greatest ease and regulari- 

 ty — and his stud of horses and brood mares, 

 " beautiful to look upon !" and lastly, the 

 sugar house, with its machinery and well ap- 

 pointed apparatus, as true as clock work ; 

 calling into requisition his chemical science, 

 as well as his mechanical skill — and all oc- 

 cupied in the preparation of an article for 

 which there is as regular a demand as for 

 bread, and which will always obtain as ready 

 a sale in the market, maugre all the changes 

 of fashion, by which 'many traders might be 

 prostrated — and all conducted without hurry 

 or confusion — no fear lest a premature frost 

 might put a period to his labors betbre half 

 the work is done (as is often the case in the 

 cane districts in this country) or, that the 

 same evil might assail his next spring crops, 

 blasting at once his hopes for the whole year 

 — for of all the crops that are cultivated, per- 

 haps the sugar beet is the most secure in this 

 respect, as the time of sowing might be de- 

 layed, if the season is unpropitious, and the 

 time of harvesting be expedited in bad sea- 

 sons, without essential injury to the crop, or, 

 with less evil than would accrue to any other. 



At the same time, as has already been ob- 

 served, the business of sugar making ought 

 not to be taken up by agriculturists general- 

 ly: there must be many consumers to one 

 producer, or there will be no purchasers — 

 and if this law of reason were observed and 

 reflected upon, there would be fewer cases 

 of mania. All, however, can indulge in the 

 cidtivation of the beet, but it is those only of 

 capital and enterprise, who should engage in 

 the manufacture of sugar therefrom ; and not 

 even then, until due provision has been made, 

 and the business placed in the hands of some 

 person who is competent to conduct the dif- 

 ferent operations to their final results — then 

 it must succeed, and better perhaps in this 

 country than in any other in the worki. 



* The puerile idea, so sedulously propa- 

 gated at the first introduction of the sugar 

 beet to notice, that " every occupier of a six- 



* I remember a plain Farmer called upon me and 

 said, " I want. Mister, to make my own sugar — people 

 talk aliout the good of the country, and this and that, 

 all which I don't pretend to know any thing about — 

 but I wavt to viake svgcr, — so if you'll come up and put 

 in the vi'ay on't, III pay you fort. I got a quarter 

 •e of fine beets, and my wife; got plenty of pots atiii 

 kettles and pans and buckets — as ninny I guess as 

 you'll want ; hut if you want any tiling else, why you 

 can bring it up with you : 1 want to make sugar."— i- 1'. 



