22 



ery, a worse process and without animal carbon, they had 

 produced favorable results. From all these facts no doubt 

 can remain, that northern climates greatly favor this pro- 

 duction and that southern are proportionably unfavorable.* 

 Much astonishment has been expressed by many that this 

 should be the case. This astonishment may probably be 

 raced to the analogy which we naturally and involuntarily 

 conceive exists between the sugar cane under the solar 

 influence and the beet and other roots which contain sugar 

 but growing in the earth. The least reflection will show 

 us that under circumstances so distinct, such a supposi- 

 tion is groundless. In the cane, that part of the plant which 

 produces the sugar is above the soil, and requires the di- 

 rect contact of the sun's rays, the action of which is emi- 

 nently favored by the structure of the plant itself The 

 beet on the contrary is a root the part productive of su- 

 gar is, or ought to be entirely covered with earth, and was 

 never therefore intended by nature for receiving the sun's 

 rays, since she has provided it besides its covering of earth 

 with an ample shield of leaves to shelter any part of it 

 which may accidently protrude above the soil. These two 

 distinct modes of formation have then no analogy, and 

 there is nothing after all surprising in the fact that the 

 beet should produce in the north a sugar identic with that 

 supplied by the cane under the burning sun of the tropic. 

 No doubt, the beet requires the influence of the sun as 

 well as other plants, but the part containing sugar is only 

 indirectly submitted to its efl^ects ; thus for instance this 

 root requires three, four, and sometimes even five months 

 of vegetation and after that time generally about the month 



* This position has been contested by one or two writers, but has 

 been abundantly maintained by others and what is more b]i expe- 

 rience. 



