46 



Sugar Beet — Beet Sugar — How to make Manure. Vol. II. 



surface of about three inches, and the second 

 going deeper in the same place, covering the 

 surface sod with fine mould; both furrows not 

 exceeding the thickness of the vegetable 

 mould, or other good soil. 



If the land is ploughed with one furrow, 

 the operation ought to be performed before 

 winter, that it may receive the benefit of the 

 succeeding frosts, by which the success of 

 the future operations will not only be pro- 

 moted, but most of the insects lodged in the 

 soil will be destroyed. 



When one furrow alone is taken, the best 

 size is four inches and a half deep, by eight 

 or nine wide. The strain on horses, in 

 ploughing lay land,' is mostly from the depth. 



The rotation of crops to be adopted, when 

 grass lands are broken up, must partly depend 

 upon the soil, and partly on the manner in 

 which it is prepared for cultivation. As a 

 general principle, however, it may be laid 

 down, that unless by the course of cropping 

 to be pursued, the bad grasses and other plants 

 indigenous in the soil, are extirpated, they 

 will, when the land is again laid down to 

 grass, increase and prevail with more ra- 

 pidity and effect, than the seeds chosen by 

 the farmer; and the consequence must be, 

 a heavy disappointment in the future crops 

 of grass, perhaps solely, or at least princi- 

 pally attributable, to a previously defective 

 management. 



Sugar Beet. 



D. L. Child, Esq., agent of a Sugar Beet 

 Company in Illinois, writes from France: 



The most interesting aspect of the Beet 

 Sugar business, is its bearing upon agricul- 

 ture and rural economy. 



1. It enriches the land, both as an excel- 

 lent substitute for fallowing, and as producing 

 an immense quantity of capital manure. 



2. It has the latter effect in various ways, 

 but principally by feeding a large number of 

 cattle and sheep. The former are fattened 

 in three to three and a half months, and in a 

 manner that is really superb. So fine speci- 

 mens of beef creatures are seldom seen in the 

 United States, after six months of the best 

 pasturing and stall feeding. The sheep are 

 fattened in six weeks. At the manufactory 

 where I have been, they pay on an average, 

 about six louis for cattle, and sell them for 

 about eleven. A louis is about for $4 37. 

 I suppose that this branch of the business 

 would be quite as lucrative in the United 

 States, where stock animals may be bought 

 somewhat cheaper. This, you see, is dou- 

 bling capital three times a year, with the 

 help, however, of the pulp or pumice of the 

 beet. This can be kept good any desirable 

 length of time. It is sold here at 10 cents 

 the cwt. 



I 3. The profit of raising the beets is very 

 'great; according to estimates which I have 

 jfrom the most intelligent sources, I do not 

 I find it so high as Mr. Pedder did. My data 

 make the nett gain in France, after paying 

 jrent, ploughing, weeding, hoeing, digging, 

 and preserving, 404 francs per hectare. This 

 i measure is a trifle over two English acres. 

 Consequently the profit of cultivating beets 

 on an acre, will be 202 francs — about $38. 

 Can you wonder that land has risen from 

 fifty to one hundred and fifty per cent, in the 

 districts of the sugar manufactories. The 

 wages of labor for cultivating and manufac- 

 turing the produce of an hectare, amount to 

 $.■56 81. This would give for one hundred' 

 acres, $2,840 nearly; and for 400, which 

 i would be the quantity required for the largest 

 establishments, $11,830, to say nothing of 

 the profiis of the proprietor, or lease holder, 

 when he and the laborer are one and the 

 same. In this case, besides getting pay for 

 his labor, he would receive $.38 profit per 

 acre. Wages will be higher in America, 

 and the {)rofits of the laborer and proprietor 

 still more encouraging. In one manufactory 

 ! which I visited, two-thirds of the hands were 

 women, who are paid much less than men. 

 But there is no reason why it should be so, for 

 :they do just as much work, and just as well 

 as men. They do the principal part of the 

 weeding and dressing of the crop every 

 where." 



Beet Ssigar. 



A new process has been discovered at 

 Strasburg, by means of which a white crys- 

 tallised sugar is produced in twelve hours 

 from beet root, and which does not require 

 any further refining^ This invention is the 

 more curious as neither any acids or chemical 

 agency is employed in this remarkable opera- 

 tion and the use of animal blood is entirely 

 dispensed with. It has also the advantage of 

 saving twenty-five per cent, in the consump- 

 tion of fuel. The new process is also appli- 

 cable in all the present manufactories of sugar, 

 with the exception of those upon the princi- 

 ple of dessication of the beet root. The in- 

 ventor is M. Edward Stolle, who, though not 

 more than twenty-five years of age, is already 

 highly distinguished for his experiments in 

 chemistry, and his works in polite literature. 



The Erie Observer says that choice fruit 

 can be obtained in a shorter way than by 

 grafting. It consists in planting instead of 

 grafting. The limb of an appletree cut in 

 the spring of the year, at the usual time of 

 trimming, with the cut end stuck into a po- 

 tatoe, and planted in the ground, is more 

 likely to grow and become a thrifty tree than 

 a graft inserted in the usual manner. 



