April 5, 1906] 



NA TURE 



539 



his book. A few figures of some of the urns and 

 other relics found by Canon Greenwell in the barrows 

 of the North Riding would have formed more instruc- 

 tive illustrations than the somewhat scrappy and 

 heterogeneous plate of "prehistoric weapons" that 

 faces p. 34. A plate of urns in the Pickering Museum 

 is, indeed, given further on, but it lacks typological 

 qualities. Much has been done during the last few 

 years towards tin classification of barrow remains, 

 more especially in the case of the pottery, and there 

 should be no difficulty in presenting a scries from 

 so rich a district as Pickering on a plan more in 

 accordance with the results of recent research. In 

 spite of such occasional lapses Mr. Home carries the 

 the reader through the story with considerable skill 

 and vivacity. A later chapter will probably be found 

 the most interesting to the general reader, that dealing 

 with local legends, witchcraft, and folklore. Here 

 there is ample material for a 

 considerable volume, for it is 

 certain that where Mr. Home- 

 has gleaned so much there 

 must exist a vast harvest for 

 the trained student. The 

 figure from this chapter re- 

 produced here has been used 

 in sympathetic magic, the 

 universal practice of which 

 Mr. Frazer treats in "The 

 Golden Bough." Traces of 

 Scandinavian importations are 

 frequent, and some of the sur- 

 vivals in local custom have 

 the flavour of a much more 

 remote age. A good deal has 

 already been done in this 

 direction for Cleveland, but it 

 is evidently a fruitful soil and 

 well worth careful and ex- 

 haustive treatment. There are 

 some admirable photographic 

 reproductions of the very re- 

 markable, and in some cases 

 beautiful, wall paintings in 

 Pickering Church, and the 

 story of the regulations of the Duchy of Lancaster 

 during Plantagenet and later times is full of quaint 

 customs and interesting matter. The book as a whole 

 has a cheerful air, and may well lead some who are 

 unacquainted with the beauties and interest of Cleve- 

 land to pay Pickering a visit. 



A few points may be worth the author's consider- 

 ation if his book should reach a second impression. 

 He seems to be unaware (p. 30) that the Bateman 

 collection of sepulchral urns is now in the museum 

 at Sheffield, and a detailed catalogue was published 

 by the curator in 1899 ; on p. 45 he states that bronze 

 spearheads have been found in round barrows near 

 Pickering, which seems unlikely; and on p. 48 he 

 figures a quern of a known Roman type in the Bronze 

 age section. On p. 57 an unfortunate slip makes 

 data singular instead of plural. 



found in the neighbourhood 

 of Pickering. The figure 

 was made of pi tch , beeswax, 

 bullock's blood, hog's lard, 

 and fat from a bullock's 

 heart. It was used for 

 casting spells on people, 

 the pin being stuck in the 

 figure where the " ill-cast " 

 was required to fall. From 

 "The Evolution of an 

 English Town." 



THE GROWTH OF BEET-SUGAR /A 

 ENGLAND. 



T ORD DENBIGH'S motion in the House of Lords 

 '—' on Monday night, asking for a rebate on the 

 present excise duty on any sugar made in this coun- 

 try from beets during a certain limited period, raises 

 two interesting questions. On one of them — the 



NO. I 90 I, VOL. 73] 



desirability of the State incurring expenditure in order 

 to establish a new industry in the country- we have 

 little to say in these columns; we may be content to 

 point out that it is possible for a Government de- 

 partment to teach the community businesses previously 

 unappreciated. This very beet-sugar manufacture has 

 been introduced into the United States by the action 

 of their Department of Agriculture, with the result 

 that the production has grown to 210,000 tons ol 

 sugar in 1904-5 as compared with 20,000 tons ten 

 years earlier. 



The other point in dispute is the possibility of 

 growing satisfactory sugar-beet in this country, 

 with its greater rainfall and lower sunshine than 

 the typical Continental centres of sugar produc- 

 tion. However, the experiments, organised for so 

 many years by Mr. Sigmund Stein, of Liverpool, and 

 latterly by Lord Denbigh himself, have amply demon- 

 strated that over the east and south-east of England 

 larger crops of sugar-beet can be grown than in 

 Germany without any loss of quality, either as re- 

 gards the proportion of sugar in the root or its 

 quotient of purity. American experience also shows 

 how adaptable the sugar-beet is to wide diversities 

 of soil and climate. 



The English farmer requires but little education 

 in the management of the crop, since the cultivation 

 it requires differs but little from that of the mangel, 

 though the cost per acre is slightly greater. We may 

 take it as settled by numerous experiments extending 

 over many seasons now that the farmer would be 

 prepared to grow- sugar-beet in quantity, provided a 

 price were offered approaching that which is paid 

 by the foreign factories, that is, from 16s. to 20s. 

 per ton of roots. How far the manufacture would be 

 profitable at those rates can only be settled by trial 

 on a commercial scale ; a factory must be erected in 

 a suitable district and given a fair working test for 

 two or three years. 



While the data available show prospects of a reason- 

 able return on the capital that would be required, one 

 or two difficulties suggest themselves which cannot 

 be resolved except by actual working. The first lies 

 in the provision of labour; the process of manufacture 

 must be practically completed in three months after 

 harvest, and it is doubtful whether labourers could be 

 obtained in this country to work three or four months 

 in the factory and the rest of the time on the land. 

 The other doubtful point is whether the necessary 

 scientific control, for sugar-making from beet is a 

 very specialised piece of chemistry, can be obtained 

 cheaply enough here. Lord Denbigh practically asks 

 the State for a little assistance to get these points 

 settled; with a rebate of the excise duty, equivalent 

 to a bonus of 2s. 6d. per cwt. on sugar manufactured 

 from beet grown in England, there is a sufficient 

 margin of profit in sight to draw the capital required 

 for the first factory, and a very few years would suffice 

 to demonstrate whether the business would be possible 

 without artificial assistance, or whether the experi- 

 ment must be dropped. 



Without doubt, the establishment of a beet-sugar 

 industry would give the farmer an additional outlet 

 in manv parts of the country; it would, however, 

 not work the semi-revolution in agriculture which has 

 resulted from it in many other places. The English 

 farmer already practises intensive agriculture, and the 

 mangel crop, so integral an element in a rotation in 

 the south of England, gives rise to the heavy 

 manuring, the thorough cultivation, and the wealth 

 of food for stock which have been tin- gnat benefits 

 conferred bv the sugar-beet on the agriculture of 

 Germanv and the north of France. 



