AGRICULTURAL MANUFACTURES. 467 
This also agrees with a statement given by Sir K. Kane, in his Jn- 
dustrial Resources of Ireland, in which he makes the cost of sugar 
from beetroot to be £19 per ton, the difference arising from his 
charging the beetroot at 16s. 8d. instead of 15s. Thus, it is agreed 
on all hands that sugar can be made from beetroot at 2d. per lb., and 
with duty paid at 3d. per lb., which is considerably lower than it can 
be made for at the West Indies. It has also been discovered that, by 
a peculiar process, refined or loaf sugar can be made as well and as 
speedily from the syrups as from the raw sugar, which latter is the 
old practice. By this improvement, expense, time, and labour are 
greatly economised, and a much quicker return made of capital em- 
ployed. It would be foreign to the object of this paper to go into 
the details of the manufacture ; but I may observe that, so much has 
the process been accelerated, that the beetroot that is taken into the 
factory in the morning is converted into loaf sugar before night. The 
writer has seen a loaf of sugar that was made from the juice of the 
root in five or six hours; whilst, by the old process, it required a 
fortnight or more to drain the molasses from it in a perfect manner. 
Whilst, however, this branch of industry has received a wide ex- 
tension on the Continent, being introduced into all the German 
States, as well as France, Prussia, and Russia, we must notice a re- 
markable change that has occurred in its history ; that is, that all the 
small factories have been abandoned, so that, although the quantity 
of sugar made has greatly increased, the number of sugar-works has 
decreased considerably. Since the protective duty was taken off colo- 
nial sugar, it has been found that the private establishments formed 
by the beet-growers themselves did not pay, and they have consequent- 
ly been abandoned; whilst the larger ones, which are under the 
management of firms or companies, have flourished in a remarkable 
manner, and extended their operations up to the year 1858-9, when, 
from some cause which has never been fully explained, a falling-off 
in the produce of sugar took place. In 1857-8, the quantity of 
sugar made was 1,517,435cwt. ; but in the following season of 1858-9 
it amounted to only 1,303,796cwt. A still further reduction took 
place in 1859-60, when, up to the 1st January in the latter year, the 
quantity was 1,101,734cwt., against 1,124,016cwt. in the previous 
corresponding season. ‘Thirteen small factories had suspended their 
operations, which accounts in a great measure for the falling off‘ 
whilst the injury done to the beetroots by the early frosts in the au- 
tumn of 1859 accounts for the unprofitableness of the manufacture 
with the smaller works. The present season, too, is not likely to 
