By-Products 177 
beets are washed at the factory. Quantities of root tips, 
leaves, and stems are flushed into the sewers and go to 
waste. If the water in the flumes carrying the beets to 
the factory were made to run over a screen just below 
the device for elevating the beets to the washer, con- 
siderable valuable feed might be saved. Various feeding 
practices are shown in Plates XX and XXI. 
SUGAR-BEET MOLASSES 
In factories not equipped with the Steffen process of 
removing additional sugar from the molasses, there re- 
mains from 3 to 5 per cent of the original weight of the 
beet as a bitter molasses. Factories turning out molas- 
ses as a by-product vary the quantity according to whether 
the price of the sugar minus the cost of extracting is greater 
than the price for which the molasses can be sold. The 
ordinary amount that is sold as a by-product is about 
forty to sixty pounds for each ton of beets sliced. The 
purity of the juice, which in turn is modified by climatic, 
soil, and other conditions, such as the manner of topping, 
also modifies the quantity remaining after the sugar is 
made. Formerly, it was almost impossible to make a 
satisfactory disposition of the molasses, but today it is 
highly valued both as a stock feed and for manufactur- 
ing such products as alcohol, fusel oil, vinegar, and 
certain kinds of fertilizer. Reference to Table V shows 
molasses to contain about 60 per cent of digestible nutri- 
ents. A large part of this, 50 per cent of the total weight, 
consists of sugar that cannot be extracted except by the 
Steffen process because of the high percentage of salts, 
N 
