No. 3. 



Beet Susar. 



93 



To the Editor of tlie Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Beet Sugar. 



Sir, — It appears that at length the manu- 

 facture of beet sugar is about to be taken up 

 on a scale, and with capital sufficient, to in- 

 sure success. Mr. Strotlier M. Helm, of 

 Newhaven, Nelson co., Kentucky, advertises 

 for a person suitable to carry on the business, 

 and capable of conducting a large establish- 

 ment to final results. He will furnish 1300 

 acres of land, on the Mississippi, perfectly 

 dry, and capable of producing 100 bushels of 

 corn per acre, all the hands and other means 

 necessary to carry on the business advan- 

 tageously, giving to any such competent per- 

 son a liberal compensation for his services, 

 out of the profits of the concern. It is, there- 

 fore, to be hoped that the person who shall 

 be selected, will be competent to the under- 

 taking in all its parts ; and the establishment 

 of one sugar-house in that interesting part of 

 the country, will be the signal for others 

 along the line of the river, to its utmost ex- 

 tent ; for, let it be remembered, as has been 

 said by every one who has written upon the 

 subject, it would appear that about as many 

 head of cattle and sheep can be supported 

 from the refuse of a beet sugar-house as upon 

 the crop before crushing. 



I copy tlie following from the Monthly 

 Visitor, as taken from the Boston Evening 

 Journal. "The sugar imported into Great 

 Britain last year, compared with the average 

 import of the years from 1830 to 1839, has 

 fallen off 40,000 tons : England will, there- 

 fore, have to commence the cultivation of the 

 beet-root. The quantity of sugar manufac- 

 tured from this root, on the continent of Eu- 

 rope, is astonishing, and is constantly increas- 

 ing. In France there are now 800 manufac- 

 tories, producing 60,000 tons annually; in 

 Holland, the manufacture is rapidly extend- 

 ing, and one establishment, in Guelderland, 

 consumes in the process 5,000,000 of pounds 

 of beets annually. In Prussia and Central 

 Germany the same eflrirts are making, and 

 the quantity manufactured in 1838 amounted 

 to about eleven millions of pounds of sugar, 

 but at present it is very considerably more. 

 In Austria, at the close of 1838, the quantity 

 manufactured exceeded nine thousand tons, 

 and in Bohemia alone, the number of beet 

 sugar establishments amounted to eighty- 

 seven. In Russia also, the manufacture is 

 equally on the increase, and is pushed with 

 great activity, the cultivation of hemp beino- 

 abandoned in many instances for sugar beet; 

 while in Moscow and the neighbourhood, the 

 beet sugar establishments are said to have in- 

 creased in number, at the average of forty 

 per annum. 



Sugar may now be regarded as one of the 



necessaries of life; it cannot be dispensed 

 with by rich or poor; within the last half 

 century, the consumption of sugar has greatly 

 increased, for in 1791 the whole amount of 

 sugar manufactured for sale amounted to 

 480,000, in 1831 it had risen to 715,000, and 

 at the present time it is in all probability over 

 7.50,000 tons. The amount of sugar manu- 

 factured in Louisiana is about 35,000 an- 

 nually, a very small part of our consump- 

 tion. 



An attempt^' is now making to introduce 

 the culture of the beet-root into the United 

 States ; the experiment is worth trying, and 

 we hope will prove successful : according to 

 Mr. Fleichman, an acre of good cultivated 

 land will produce on an average 20t tons of 

 the beet-root, one ton of which yields, when 

 treated after the new mode, 180 pounds of 

 refined sugar; the cost of manufacturing a 

 ton of beets into sugar is estimated at six 

 dollars, at the highest, and 180 pounds of 

 refined beet sugar would sell for eleven dol- 

 lars, or 6~ cents per pound." 



Now, Mr. Editor, this account of Mr. 

 Fleichraan's is a very singular one ; his esti- 

 mate for manufacturing refined sugar, as well 

 as the produce from the beet, and the selling 

 price — none of them seem to be so near the 

 mark as the yield per acre, on good and well- 

 cultivated land, for in that he was but about 

 half out in his calculation — such accounts are 

 calculated to bring the whole subject into 

 suspicion: why Mr. Child, who professes to 

 have been operating upon a still more im- 

 proved system than any, admits that refined 

 sugar cannot be made for less than 11 cents per 

 pound, and if it were sold for that, I suppose 

 there would be no profit — these estimates re- 

 mind one of those which have been made on 

 the acreable products of silk ! 



One word, by-the-bye, on the new mode 

 of making beet sugar, that is, by dessication 

 — many of the first manufacturers in France 

 — amongst the rest Mons. Crespel, of Arras, 

 who has four large manufactories in success- 

 ful operation the present year, and at one of 

 which he will make a thousand hogsheads of 

 sugar for the refineries at Paris — are con- 

 vinced that the thing is impracticable on a 

 large scale, and they still continue to operate 

 by crushing with the rasp; by an improve- 

 ment of the after process, however, they are 

 enabled to realize a larjrer quantity of sugar 

 and of better quality, and to shorten the pro- 

 cess very considerably ; but before this last 

 improvement, the cost of manufacture was 

 not more than four cents and a half per pound ; 



*TJie attempt was made by the beet sugar Sociely of 

 Philadelphia, four years ago, and has proved perfectly 

 successful. 



fMr. Fleichman must guess again — he is but just 

 about half right yet — 40 or 45 would be nearer. 



