170 GARDENING. 



a marketable sugar, or what is called the sugar of 

 commerce. Achard followed in the same track, 

 and with a success that led him to believe that it 

 might be afforded at the low price of five or six 

 sous the pound ; but later experiments, more care- 

 fully and scientifically made, under the direction of 

 the French Institute, demonstrate that this product 

 can never come into competition with sugar made 

 from the cane.*f The saccharine mucus in which 

 it abounds, and the disposition it has to vinous fer- 

 mentation, has, however, long since suggested an- 

 other employment of it, that of making brandy, 

 and hence it is, that in countries in which the 

 vine does not prosper (as in the north of Germa- 

 ny), great quantities of it are distilled into an ardenl 

 spirit. 



The cultivation of the beet, whatever be its spe- 

 cies or variety, is the same. Having prepared (by 

 a thorough digging) a square of loose, rich, and deep 

 soilj (which has been well manured the preceding 

 fall), divide it into beds of four feet width ; score 



* It may not be amiss to mention here the process for ma- 

 king sugar from the beet, ascribed to Professor Gottling, and 

 detailed in the 1 6th volume of the Bibliotheque Brittaniyue. " To 

 disengage the saccharine matter from the mucus, which pre- 

 vents it from crystallizing, cut the roots into long slices, and as 

 thin as possible, and dry them on tiles in a stove. When thor- 

 oughly dry, put them for some hours in a small quantity of cold 

 water. The sugar will pass from the beet to the water before 

 the slices are softened, and may be again separated from it (the 

 water) by evaporation and crystallization. If we attempt to dry 

 the beet in the open air, many of them will rot ; and if you put 

 them in an oven, you run the risk of baking them. The residu- 

 um which this process leaves is useful for cattle, poultry, &c." 



t This prediction has not been verified ; for in France beet 

 sugar has come into serious competition with that made from 

 cane, in consequence of the manufacturing process being greatly 

 improved and simplified, and the whole of the saccharine mat 

 ter being now extracted from the roots. J. B. 



J Yet Mr. Cobbett recommends sowing beet seed in the fall 

 like parsnips, and says the frost cannot injure them ! 



