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of sugar. Capitalists became interested and a company 

 was formed which, under the management of General 

 Huchison, has had quite a success. The two German ex- 

 perimenters from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Messrs. Bone- 

 steel and Otto, were taken into the company, as already 

 stated. Drought and other causes interfered with their suc- 

 cess at times, but in 1871 they reported an average yield of 

 15 tons of beets per acre, and a product of 1,000,000 pounds 

 of sugar. Another company is now formed in California, 

 and the industry seems to have gained more of a foothold 

 on the Pacific coast tlian elsewhere. 



Besides the above experiments many individuals have 

 raised the beet and extracted the sugar on a smaller scale. 

 Prof. Goessman, with apparatus improvised for the occa- 

 sion, obtained a yield of from 8 to 9 per cent, of sugar from 

 beets grown in Massachusetts, or at the rate of nearly 2,000 

 pounds of sugar per acre. 



The number of failures to make the business pay has 

 been due to a variety of causes; prominent among them a 

 lack of sufficient capital to outlive the unavoidable dela3's 

 and expense of getting a good start, neglecting to determine 

 beforehand how cheaply a good beet can be raised, &c., &c. 

 Bad management, too, had its share of the blame. One 

 company failed, I am told, because they selected for the site 

 of their works the summit of a hill ; very picturesque, to 

 be sure, and giving a fine outlook over their acres of grow- 

 ing beets, but unfortunately the extra expense of carting all 

 their fael and beets uj) hilj and pumping up all their water 

 ate up the profits, and the company failed. Another com- 

 pany bought the works, moved them down the hill and are 

 now said to be doing tolerably well. 



There are many sanguine people both in tiiis country 

 and in Europe who point to the sugar beet industr}' as one 

 •of great importance to America, and embodying the poten- 

 tial flemcnts of great wealth to our people. And they point 



