390 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



by the wealthy in large towns, and is quite beyond the 

 reach of the labouring population, although it is 

 entirely freed from all duty. The history of Beet- 

 root Sugar forms one of the most instructive chapters 

 in the history of the evils resulting to a nation from 

 what is called ' the protection ' of particular interests 

 by a government. 



The celebrated Prussian chemist MargrafF, about 

 the year 1747, discovered the existence of a certain 

 portion of sugar in the beet. This discovery was 

 communicated to the Scientific Society of Berlin ; 

 but no attempt was made to carry the principle of 

 the discovery into practice. Forty years after this, 

 AchaH, another Prussian chemist, resumed the ex- 

 periments which Margraff had commenced. This 

 man was somewhat of a visionary ; and he was so 

 enraptured by the prospects which his labours opened 

 to him, that he announced the beet-root as ' one of 

 the most bountiful gifts which the Divine munificence 

 has awarded to man upon the earth ;' affirming that 

 not only sugar could be produced from beet-root, but 

 also tobacco, molasses, coffee, rum, arrack, vinegar, 

 and beer. Here, then, was clearly nothing for 

 .Europe to do but to apply itself to the cultivation of 

 beet, and leave the West Indies to be covered once 

 more with jungle. The Institute of Paris, however, 

 did not sympathise with the enthusiasm of Achard ; 

 for in 1800 a committee of that body, having gone 

 through a series of the most careful experiments, 

 reported that the results were so unsatisfactory that it 

 would be unwise to establish any manufacture of sugar 

 from beet. 



Here, probably, the matter would have rested, and 

 Europe would have continued wholly to receive its 

 sugar from countries adapted to the growth of the 

 sugar-cane, had not the decrees of Bonaparte, in 

 1809, excluded France from purchasing the produce 



