Condensed Milk and Miek Powder 41 



Beet sugar, which is chemically identical with cane sugar, is 

 used in European countries very largely in the place of cane sugar. 

 On the continent the beet sugar industry is an important factor. 

 With the climate adapted to the growing of sugar beets and the 

 labor relatively cheap, beet sugar can be secured by the European 

 condenseries at lower cost than cane sugar. In America where the 

 annual sugar cane crop is large and where the high cost of labor 

 renders the expense of growing sugar beets relatively high, there 

 is practically no difference between the price of cane sugar and beet 

 sugar. When American beet sugar was used in the condenseries 

 during the infancy of the beet sugar industry, this sugar was found 

 undesirable, often giving rise to fermented condensed milk. It was 

 then supposed by the condensed milk men, that 'beet sugar contained 

 very resistant spore-bearing bacteria, which followed the beets from 

 the soil into the refined sugar. This conclusion is highly improb- 

 able, as the temperatures and chemicals employed in the process of 

 beet sugar making, are prohibitive of the passage of living bacteria 

 from the soil to the finished sugar. It is possible, however, that 

 the standard of refinement of American beet sugar, during the ear- 

 lier days of its manufacture, was low and that some of the beet 

 sugar on the market may have contained small amounts of acid, 

 invert sugar and other impurities, ingredients of such a nature as to 

 render the sugar prone to give rise to fermentation and, therefore, 

 condemn its use in the milk condensery. 



While the beet sugar on the market to-day appears to have 

 reached a very high state of refinement and is, according to the best 

 authorities, equal in purity to cane sugar, it is still shunned by the 

 American condenseries, which insist that nothing but cane sugar will 

 do. However, the total beet sugar production in the United States 

 has more than trebled within the last ten years. In 1901 it amounted 

 to one hundred eighty-four thousand tons and in 191 1 it was six 

 hundred six thousand and thirty-three tons. Again, whenever a 

 shortage occurs of the sugar cane crops in the West Indies, raw 

 European be6t sugar is imported into the United States and it all 

 emerges from our seaboard refineries as "pure cane sugar." It is 

 not improbable, therefore, that the sugar supply o>f many American 

 condenseries today consists at times largely of beet sugar, though it 

 is purchased under the name of cane sugar. 



