BEE 



BEE 



weigh Ibar or five pounds each ; twen- 

 ty tons is a good crop, probably a large 

 crop, but not extremely large, lor in 

 some cases twenty-five or thirty tons 

 to the acre have been raised in this 

 country. At the above expense of 

 $39 50 to the acre, with a yield of 

 twenty tons, the cost would be two 

 dollars per ton. We make this esti- 

 mate to show how cheap beets may 

 be raised under favourable circum- 

 stances, such as good land at a fair 

 price, convenient machinery and im- 

 plements, and the most prudential 

 management in the culture, with la- 

 bour at a moderate price, and a fa- 

 vourable season." — (Cultivator.) 



It is said that cows fed entirely 

 oil beets become too fat, and give 

 less milk ; but this would be no objec- 

 tion with the cow-keepers, who unite 

 the fattening of their cows with the 

 milking, and like to have them ready 

 for the butcher as soon as they are 

 nearly dry. For bullocks they are 

 excellent ; for horses, Swedish tur- 

 nips are preferable. The proportion- 

 al value of hay, potatoes, Swedish tur- 

 nips, and beets, in feeding cattle, ac- 

 cording to Einhof, whose statements 

 Tnaer has found to agree with his ex- 

 periments, is as follows ; 18 tons of 

 mangel wurzel are equal to 15 tons 

 of ruta baga, or 71 tons of potatoes, 

 or 3| tons of good meadow hay, each 

 quantity containing the same nourish- 

 ment ; but the roots may be grown 

 upon less than an acre, whereas it 

 will take two or three acres of good 

 meadow land to produce the equiva- 

 lent quantity of hay ; and of all these 

 root crops, the least exhausting for 

 the land is the beet. The white beet 

 has been chiefly cultivated for the ex- 

 traction of sugar from its juice. It 

 is smaller than the mangel wurzel, 

 and more compact. We have given 

 it to cattle, and are satisfied with the 

 result ; but v\e have not made suffi- 

 ciently accurate experiments to de- 

 cide which sort is the most advanta- 

 geous. The crops vary from COO to 

 1200 bushels. The beet, especially 

 the white Sicilian, is better than man- 

 gel wurzel. They are improved by 

 steaming, but must be fed up in two 



W 2 



or three days, or they ferment. Seed 

 plants are set out in May and gatlier- 

 ed in September. It will probably be 

 found that the nature of the soil will 

 make the scale turn in favour of the 

 one or the other ; but for the manu- 

 facture of sugar, the smaller beet, of 

 which the roots weigh only one or 

 two pounds, are preferred by Chap- 

 tal, who, besides being a celebrated 

 chemist, was also a practical agricul- 

 turist, and a manufacturer of sugar 

 from beet root. 



BEET SUGAR. This manufac- 

 ture sprung up in France, it having 

 been found that from the juice of the 

 beet root a crystallizable sugar could 

 be obtained. We here give a brief 

 account of the process : The first op- 

 eration is to clean the roots ; some 

 effect this by washing, but Chaptal 

 prefers scraping and paring them 

 with a knife, although by this means 

 one sixth part of the root is wasted, 

 as the scrapings mixed with earth 

 cannot be safely given to cattle, and 

 even the pigs eat but little of it ; but 

 it adds to the manure, and is there- 

 fore not altogether lost. Six tons of 

 beet root are thus reduced to five, 

 which are next to be rasped and re- 

 duced to a pulp. This is done by a 

 machine consisting of a cylinder ot 

 tinned iron, two feet in diameter, and 

 eighteen inches in the axis, on which 

 it is turned by machinery. On the 

 circumference of this cylinder are 

 fixed, by means of screws, ninety 

 narrow plates of iron, rising three 

 fourths of an inch from the surface 

 and parallel to the axis, at equal dis- 

 tances all round ; the outer or pro- 

 jecting edges of these plates are cut 

 into teeth like a saw ; a slanting box 

 is fixed to the frame on which the 

 axis of the C34inder turns, so that the 

 roots may be pressed against these 

 plates. The cylinder is made to re- 

 volve rapidly, and the roots are thus 

 scraped, the pulp falling into a vessel, 

 lined wifli lead, placed below. When 

 two such cylinders are made to re- 

 volve 400 times in a minute by a suf- 

 ficient power, whether water, wind, 

 or horses, two and a half tons of roots 

 are ground down in two honis. It is 



80 



