10 The Sugar-Beet in America 
which remained contained sugar in solution and also a 
resinous matter which he abstracted by evaporation.” 
First commercial extraction of beet-sugar. 
Karl Franz Achard, son of a French refugee in Prussia, 
was the first to extract sugar from beets on a commer- 
cial scale. He had been a student of Marggraf, who had 
turned his attention to the beet as a source of sugar. 
After the death of his teacher in 1782, Achard devoted 
himself faithfully to perfecting methods of extracting the 
sugar. The laboratory methods were too expensive to 
be used on a large scale. In 1797, after fifteen years of 
work, he announced his methods, and two years later 
presented them and samples of sugar to the Institute of 
France. His statements brought forth considerable 
ridicule, but the Institute was sufficiently aroused to ap- 
point a commission of nine leading scientists of France to 
investigate the whole problem of extracting sugar from 
beets. On January 25, 1800, the commission made its 
report, which, on the whole, was favorable to Achard, 
although it doubted some of his claims. 
In the meantime, the producers of cane-sugar had be- 
come alarmed and feared that some of their profits might 
be lost. It is reported that in 1796 a society in England 
offered Achard $30,000 if he would abandon his work 
and make the world believe his attempts had not been a 
success. Two years later a new offer of $120,000 was 
made and refused. An attempt was then made to destroy 
interest in beet-sugar through Sir Humphry Davy, the 
celebrated English chemist. He said that while sugar 
could be obtained from beets, it was too sour for food. 
