AMERICAN BEET SUGAR. 43 



with water, and the sucrate used to clarify the juice instead of lime, the sugar 

 being freed by carbonic acid gas as described under carbonation. 



This is, briefly, how beet sugar is extracted and made equal in quality to the 

 finest refinery product. Technically it is " Cane Sugar." (See U. S. Dispen- 

 satory.) 



ITEMS OF INTEREST. 



How THE TARE is ARRIVED AT. At the laboratory the tare man assorts the 

 different samples, by contract number ; if there be more than one sample, they 

 are mixed and an average fifty-pound sample is taken, weighed, washed and re- 

 weighed; the difference in weight, multiplied by two, gives the tare per cent. 

 Each weight is multiplied by the polarization, and the sum of the products, 

 divided by the total weight of the beets, gives the average weight of sugar. 



WHY BEETS WITH PURITY BELOW 80 ARE OBJECTIONABLE AND ARE OF 

 NECESSITY REJECTED. In a previous paragraph, it has been explained as clearly 

 as possible what "purity" means, and how it affects the crystallization of sugar- 

 Farmers frequently complain that it is not neceseary to reject beets of 75 purity 

 when 80 purity is the standard. Perhaps the fact that the waste molasses from 

 which the factory derives no revenue whatever analyzes 46 to 48 pet cent, sugar, 

 with 57 to 60 purity, may illustrate the truth that beets with 1 2 per cent, sugar and 

 75 purity are not desirable ; the percentage of sugar crystallized is so small that it 

 is unprofitable, if not an absolute loss of money, to process them at all. 



The extraction of sugar is one of the fine problems in chemistry, dealing with 

 almost infinitesimal fractions in quantities and results. The results of the cam- 

 paign, whether to the profit side of the ledger, or to the contrary, depend solely 

 upon the laboratory; that is, providing the general business management is what 

 it should be. It is not to be expected that the farmer, as a class, will fully com- 

 prehend the matter, but experience and close observation will finally make this and 

 other vital matters connected with this great business clear, and distrust will dis- 

 appear. 



PROFITS. FARMER vs. CAPITAL. A crop that yields, gross, from $40 to $100 

 per acre in comparison to other field crops, is of itself a convincing argument, and 

 in proportion to the risk is fully equal to the factory proportion of the profits. 



If capital is to be invited into this new field of enterprise only upon the con- 

 dition that it will share equally with the grower all that can be made in the bus- 

 iness, one of two things will happen, capital will not invest at all, or capital will 

 own both land and factory. 



The price of beets will unquestionably remain about $4.00 per ton at the factory 

 unless a very low sugar market forces the price down, which is not likely, as the 

 price of refined sugar in the United States to the consumer is very low as compared 

 with foreign countries. 



SUGAR PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. "It has been alleged that sugar pro- 

 duction is already overdone ; witness the present low price of its product. While 

 it must be doubted that sugar will again rise to the high prices that have ruled 

 in the past, it is also true that the low prices will continue to stimulate and 

 increase consumption. Within the easy recollection of the present generation 

 sugar was a luxury, too costly to be used otherwise than sparingly, and diligently 

 claimed to be particularly injurious to children in general, whose natural appetite 

 craved a more liberal allowance of what is now justly considered an alimentary 



