212 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



It will be unnecessary in this connection to give the history 

 of beet culture from its introduction into this country up to the 

 present time. But during 1883 an< ^ x ^^4 a ^ the beet-sugar in 

 our country was made at a factory located at Alvarado, 

 California. 1 The juice of beets raised on the estate of this 

 corporation contained 14.38 per cent, sugar, and last August 

 reached 20.5 per cent, at one time, with the "purity coefficient" 

 of 82, the usual average per cent, in Germany being from 

 12 to 13, with but one factory reaching as high as 15.6 per 

 cent. 2 The quantity of sugar produced per acre by the factory 

 has averaged about 3000 pounds. 



Sugar manufactured from the beet on the Pacific coast is 

 an assured success. The climate and soil of northern Cali- 

 fornia, Oregon, and Washington Territory are especially 

 suitable to this plant. A vast range of territory in our Northern 

 States would be adapted to the cultivation of the sugar beet. 

 Scientific methods of horticulture and agriculture should be 

 resorted to, to increase the supply, for an insufficiency of 

 beets in the past, and not the defects of machinery, has been 

 the cause of failures. 



An adequate supply of sugar cannot be expected from the 

 maple, nor from the sugar-cane of the South during the present 

 state of this industry. 



The maple is a tree of slow growth. Only after twenty- 

 five years can it be used for sugar- making. It yields the best 

 harvest after a severe winter, and, therefore, the North is the 

 proper field for the planting of this tree. "Even if forestry 

 is successful in securing a wide increase of maple orchard, 

 it will be many years before it can affect our sugar supply." 3 



The annual production of maple sugar is now about 20,000 

 tons, 4 and of molasses, 2,000,000 gallons. 



market saccharine-glucose a combination of two parts of the coal-tar 

 derivative product and one thousand parts glucose, which, it is claimed, will 

 be elevated to the dignity of a genuine competitor with cane sugar. 



1 "Our Sugar Supply," by H. W. Wiley. From Bui. No. 2, Chem. Soc. oj 

 Washington, January, 1887. 



2 Overland Monthly, December, 1886. E. W. Hilgard. 



3 From Bui. No. 2, Chem. Soc. oj Washington. 



4 Bui. No. 5, Chem. Div. Dept. Agr., p. 7. 



