146 T7'ansactions, — Miscellaneous. 



oxygen, obtained principally from the atmosphere in the shape of rain and 

 carbonic acid, the soil is not exhausted by the beets being grown upon these 

 lands ; and judicious application of manures, in addition to the leaves and 

 pulp, more than keeps up the fertility of the soil to the condition it held 

 before the beets were cultivated, while the preparation of the land and 

 culture of the beetroot, and the profit made therefrom, enable more 

 labourers to be kept all the year round upon each farm, and at better wages, 

 and yet be remuneratively employed, than would be possible without the 

 beet culture. But let us leave for the present the farmers who would grow 

 the beet, and turn to those who would manufacture it into sugar. 



The larger the capital invested in beet-sugar manufacture up to a certain 

 amount — supposing the management to be equally good in each instance — 

 the greater the profit, and the better altogether for all concerned, as more 

 perfect machinery and more certain results can be attained to, and although 

 a capitalist, or a company, could start and work a factory and make sugar 

 for a year from a capital of £25,000, yet it would be far wiser and better 

 in every way to have a capital of £75,000, or if possible £100,000, which 

 would pay better than either of the other sums. But as there would be no 

 difficulty in raising the sum in Europe for such a purpose if the directory 

 and management was what it should be, it would be well to have the larger 

 sum invested. 



But taking £75,000 as the capital of a company, let us see what similar 

 enterprises return as profits for such a capital in other places. 



Capital £75,000 ; £50,000 of which would be expended upon buildings 

 and machinery and plant generally, and £25,000 would be reserved, or spent 

 upon a year's working expenses. 



In France and Germany, the average cost of producing a weight of 

 sugar is, if calculated in English weight and money, equal to from l^d. to 

 2d. per pound, varying according to the perfection of the factory, plant, etc., 

 or about £18 per ton, A factory furnished with a plant like that proposed, 

 could easily work up and convert into sugar thirty thousand tons of beet- 

 root, which, supposing the beet yielded at the rate of about eight per cent, 

 of crystallized sugar, or a total equal to 2,392 tons of crystallized sugar, 

 would cost £43,056 to produce, and would if sold at £36 per ton, leave 

 a profit for sale of sugar of £43,056. There would then be left from 

 this quantity of beet, 800 tons of molasses, which if sold at £2 per ton 

 would amount to £1,600, and there would be about 5,700 tons of beet pulp, 

 which if sold at 10s. per ton to the farmers or dairymen, or to any one 

 keeping live stock, would amount to £2,850, being a total of £47,506 for the 

 year's operations, which would be a profit of over 60 per cent, upon the 

 whole of the capital. 



