BEET AND BEET-SUGAR. 123 



these beet roots are the same as they would ever have been. The 

 grand questions to be determined were, whether the roots would 

 keep or not, and whether the cattle would eat them from the pile as 

 freely as from the field. All this was ascertained in the course of 

 the winter : the beet kept perfectly, the cattle ate it as freely as ever. 

 The procedure to be adopted therefore to secure a crop of beet of 

 average weight, storing nevertheless some considerable time before 

 the usual period, is simply to transplant somewhat more closely, and 

 to put less space between the drills. If experience decides in favor 

 of this method, the sole inconvenience which attends the cultivation 

 of the beet in a freshly manured soil, and as the first crop in the 

 rotation, that, namely, of causing a late and unfavorable seed-time for 

 winter corn, will be completely got over. 



The beet which grows above the ground is best gathered with the 

 hand ; kinds that grow under ground require to be loosened by run- 

 ning a plough along the drill, &c. In Alsace it is the custom to take 

 away the leaves, and to trim the roots upon the ground ; the refuse 

 thus obtained constitutes a considerable mass of manure, which it is 

 well to plough in immediately. 



To extract the sugar of the beet the plant is washed and rasped, 

 and the pulp is then subjected to the action of a powerful press. 

 Like the juice of the cane, the juice of the beet speedily undergoes 

 a change ; it is therefore immediately heated to 70° cent, or ISSTahr., 

 and a little lime is mixed with it to neutralize acid and favor the clarifi- 

 cation, by combining with albumen. The liquor is skimmed, and in the 

 course of an hour becomes quite limpid, and of a pale yellow color. 

 The liquor is then run upon a filter containing animal charcoal, and 

 from tliat is transferred to a boiler where it is properly reduced, the 

 process being in all respects the same as in the manufacture of cane 

 sugar. 



In France, the produce of each 110 lbs. weight of beet is estimated 

 at 4.56, or somewhat more than 4^ lbs. of white sugar. The amount 

 of loss in the manufacture may be conceived from the actual compo- 

 sition of the beet, which, by the process followed by M. Peligot,* 

 and which consists essentially in drying a certain weight of the root, 

 cut into thin slices, and then exhausting the matter with boiling 

 alcohol of moderate density, appears to contain from 4 or 5, up to 9, 

 10, 11, and even nearly 12 per cent, of sugar. This analysis of M. 

 Peligot has been confirmed by the experiments of M. Braconnot,t 

 who found the white beet of Silesia to have a very complex compo- 

 sition, comprising as many as twenty-one different ingredients, among 

 the number crystallizable sugar, albumen, woody matter, phos- 

 phate of magnesia, phosphate of lime, oxalate of potash, and oxalate 

 of lime, oxide of iron, an ammoniacal salt in small quantity, &c. 

 On an average, the analysis of M. Peligot would lead us to conclude 

 that the beet contained in one hundred parts — 



* Recherches sur I'analyse de la betterave a sucre. 

 t Annales de Chimie, vol. Ixxii. p. 442, 2d. series. 



