GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 85 



go quite as far astray as theologians often do in dealing with 

 questions of science. 



My reply to Prof. Huxley is accordingly confined to the strictly 

 personal questions raised by his references to myself. I hope 

 that, after making due allowance for Hibernicisms and for imper- 

 fect acquaintance with English modes of thought and expression, 

 he will accept my explanation as sufficient. — Nineteenth Century. 



GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



By A. H. ALMY. 



THE statistics collected from the sugar-producing countries 

 show that more than one half of the world's sugar is derived 

 from the beet-root ; and it is known that the consumers of sugar 

 in the United States often make daily use of it in their house- 

 holds without suspecting that they are contributing to the sup- 

 port of the peasantry and wage-earners of continental Europe. 



Whenever the history of the beet-sugar industry shall have 

 been written, it will prove interesting and instructive to the stu- 

 dent, as an achievement of science, and will present a problem to 

 the political economist of grave import in its reflection on the 

 future business possibilities. It is a matter of historical record 

 that for many years, in the early part of the present century, con- 

 tinental Europe worked almost hopelessly to produce a sugar- 

 yielding plant which would thrive in its northern climate and 

 supply the sugar it consumed. 



Chemistry had demonstrated that the beet-root — as well as 

 other forms of plant-life — contained a solution of sugar identical 

 with that found in the cane-plant of the tropics ; but the amount 

 of sugar extracted was so inconsiderable as to preclude the hope 

 of obtaining a supply from that source, unless new discoveries 

 should make it possible to increase the saccharine product. 



Schools of instruction were established for imparting special 

 information in the cultivation of the beet and the extraction of 

 the saccharine principle. And costly experiments and researches 

 were made. 



Scientific men were rewarded, subsidies were granted, and fac- 

 tories were built, but sugar was produced only at extravagant 

 cost ; and, as a financial venture, without other considerations, it 

 proved a stupendous failure. The industry was abandoned in 

 France with the fall of Napoleon, but was continued in a moderate 

 way by some of the continental states without a profitable result, 

 until about twenty years ago, when the possible war complica- 

 tions of that period — which afterward culminated in the humilia- 



