1«37] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



411 



cesses, an advance calculated to give a very rapid 

 increase of production. 



" But lor tliis purpose it will be necessary that 

 the duty should assist it I'm some years to come. 

 The makers of native suiiar insist, then, upon the 

 keepini; up of the present tarili's. Moreover, these 

 manuliicturers, admitting fully that beei-root sugar 

 may and ought at some period to be taxed, mam- 

 tain that to subjtxt it at present to any duly what- 

 ever would he to ruin almost all the lactories in 

 existence, while it would at the same time prevent 

 the creation of any new establishment. They also 

 argue, that as long as we have colonies, it will be 

 but justice to secure their produce a prelerence in 

 our markets. 



"To sum up, the commission of inquiry has 

 come to this conclusion — that without at all di- 

 minishing the duty of 24f. 75c. upon the sugar of 

 our own colonies, which raises their price on com- 

 ing out of bond into the market to 71f 75c. the 

 quintal, the duty upon the sugar of foreign colonies 

 has been fixed at 4111 25c., so that they shall not 

 be able to come into market at less than 78f. 75c. 

 per quintal. 



''And with respect to the home-made sugar — 

 that from beet-root — while the just right to impose 

 a dutj' upon it at some time or other, similar to 

 that now imposed on wines, is not ijiven up, the 

 commission has thought fit to anticipate nothing in 

 this respect ; their wish is, that until an altered 

 state of circumstances shall arise, the home-made 

 sugar shall be free from all duty whatsoever. 



"Thus the most important result of these 

 branches of the inquiry will be, that for the present 

 there is to be scarcely any change in the tariff' of 

 duties, and in the slate of affairs, so far as iron 

 and suiiar are concerned." 



But it has been argued, and with some degree 

 of plausibility, that a general adoption of this man- 

 ufacture in England is unadvisable, inasmuch as 

 every acre of land so occupied, will subtract so 

 much fi-om the breadth of corn grown ; and, con- 

 sequently, that a positive injury will be inflicted, in 

 exchange for at best an uncertain good. This, I 

 say, is the drift of the argument ; but to those who 

 are acquainted with the management ol' land, it 

 will be sufficient to remark, that the mangel wurzel 

 intended for sugar will form, as now for cattle, 

 only one certain defined portion of the farm called 

 a shift, generally consisting of about a fourlh of the 

 arable land— fijr instance, if 200 acres are under 

 the plough, they will be thus divided — 



50 acres mangel wurzel, 

 50 " barley or oats, 

 50 " clover, 

 50 " wheat. 



I am aware that the substitution of man2:el wurzel 

 for turnips may be objected to. as not afibrdinsr a 

 sufficiency of food for sheep, without which Ihe 

 land cannot be kept m good heart. On this I 

 would only remark, that for the sake of ensuring a 

 produce so important and so profitable as sugar, it 

 is not unreasonable to expect that some sacrifice 

 should be made on the part of the farmer; and I 

 readily admit, that to a certain extent, this sacrifice 

 must consist in an abridgment of the supplies of 

 winter food for the flock, and an infringement on 

 the customary mode of consuming it on the ground. 

 I have called it the custnmary mode, but it is well 

 known that such is only the case on light dry 



soils, and that on those of a contrary descri[)tion, 

 the whole crop is not unfreciuently carted off tlm 

 field ; the larger roots to be consumed by bidlocks, 

 in yards and home-stalls; and the tops, offal, &c., 

 by sheep and lean stock on the pastures, or some 

 dry contiguous inclosure, usually a wheat stubble. 

 Now, the offdl of the manucl wurzel, consisting of 

 the tops and cuttintis of the ()lants, may bi» dis- 

 posed of in a similar manner f()r the stock sheep; 

 and those intended for fattening must be provided 

 with oil-cake, corn, or other artificial food, a prac- 

 tice which, however undesirable, and even inde- 

 fensible in common cases, is both allowable and 

 desirable where a crop so profitable, as sugar is 

 said to be, furnishes the means of purchasing them. 

 In like manner the making of sugar on a flirm 

 has been objected to, as tending to the permanent 

 injury of ttie land by the abstraction of the best 

 |)arts of the roots, viz. their saccharine juices; 

 thereby depriving the land of so much manure as 

 these, if consumed by cattle, would produce. How, 

 it has been asked, can we reasonably expect that 

 the pulp, the mere residuum after the nutritious 

 particles of the root have been taken from it, 

 should possess any powers to fatten cattle, much 

 less any powers at all equal to those possessed by 

 the root itself when given whole, as it grew 1 I 

 know of no better answer to this question, than by 

 appealing to the practice of those who are in the 

 habit of using it, year after year, on a large scale. 

 From 100 to 150 bullocks are not unfi'equently 

 fattened in a season in one of these sugar-making 

 establishments in France. They are there usually 

 bought in at £5 and sold out at £ 11 each. " But 

 the weight ofnutriiive matter is so much diminish- 

 ed by pressing out the juices, that surely a great 

 loss much be occasioned thereby." A loss in 

 vjeight of root there undoubtedly is, as we have 

 already shown, 34 tons of root yielding but 10 tons 

 of pulp. A beast is allowed bo lbs. (say in round 

 numbers \ cwt.) of pulp per day. The same 

 beast would consume of raw root 1 cwt. in a day, 

 therefore the 10 tons of pulp would last as long as 

 20 Ions of root. But there were 34 tons pressed ; 

 consequently these 34 tons ought, if these premises 

 be correct, to be equal to 17 tons, instead of 10 

 tons of pulp. We have therefore a loss, or an 

 apparent loss of 7 tons of pulp, eijual, for fattening 

 purposes, to 14 tons of root. This deficiency con- 

 sists in the sugar and the aqueous matter; one 

 part of which is turned to profit, the other it is well 

 to be rid of; it being injuiioiis rather than other- 

 wise, especially for fattening cattle. The ques- 

 tion, therefore, is, whether 20 tons of root, in which 

 is included a considerable weight of aqueous and 

 extraneous matter, are equal in point of nutriment 

 to 10 tons of pulp which, though much of the sac- 

 cliarine juice has been extracted from it, has also 

 been deprived of every particle that would tend to 

 counteract the fattening properties of the roof? I 

 hardly think it would, and am inclined to the belief 

 that 10 tons of pulp would, in a given time, pro- 

 duce much more beef than double the weight of 

 raw root. In this opinion I am corroborated by a 

 practice which, I am told, has of late obtained 

 in Gloucestershire and part of Monmouthshire, 

 namely, that of rasping and pressing the roots of 

 the mangel wurzel, solely with a view to getting 

 rid of the watery particles — the whole of the juice, 

 sugar and all, (at least so much of it as with the 

 common presses they can abtain>) is thus throwa 



