214 



SUGAR. 



The manufacture has been unsuccessfully attempted in England 

 and Ireland. In New Jersey, California, Canada, and parts of 

 Australia attempts have also been made to grow the beet for sugar 

 production. Owing to the smaller quantity of saccharine in beet- 

 roots than in sugar-cane, and owing also to the more intricate and 

 complex combinations in which that saccharine matter is found in 

 the root than in the cane, greater ingenuity and a more careful appli- 

 cation of scientific processes are needed in the one than in the 

 other. 



A beetroot sugar manufacturer must not only be supplied with a 

 large capital, as the " plant " required for his industry is both heavy 

 and expensive, but his mind must be stored with an amount of 

 scientific and practical knowledge of no ordinary character. He must 

 be a thorough, practical agriculturist ; as the cultivation of the root, 

 to be successfully carried out, must enter into a well-organized 

 rotation of crops, and take its rank in that rotation according to local 

 conditions of climate and soil, which it requires a thorough, practical 

 mind to determine. He must also be a good chemist; not only to 

 ascertain the capabilities of the soil on which he oj)erates, and 

 determine the special manures necessary — for the saccharine quality of 

 the roots wholly depends on the food on w^hich they grow — but he 

 must also be able to conduct the nice chemical processes essential to 

 extract sugar from the root, and meet many accidental contingencies 

 with which these processes are beset at every stage of their progress. 

 He must also be familiar with the arts of the engineer and mechanic, 

 so as to be able to plan and carry out all the imi^rovements which 

 are daily suggested by enlarged experience and practice, in order to 

 meet, by simpler and less expensive mechanical means, the increased 

 salaries of labourers, the fresh taxes laid on sugar, and the large 

 competition of home and foreign antagonists and rivals. He must 

 also be a prudent and active commercial man, carefully watching the 

 state of the market, both in the purchase of raw materials, and the 

 disposal of his produce. 



In 1700 there was not consumed in France 1,000,000 kilogrammes 

 of sugar. In 1861 the consumption had reached 120,000,000, and in 

 1874 it was 258,000,000. It would supersede and annihilate the 

 consumption of colonial sugar if it were not taxed by the Govern- 

 ment. Free from duty it could be sold with profit to the manu- 

 facturer at 2d. the pound. 



" The art of extracting sugar from beetroots," remarks Walkhofi*, 

 " is a northern, and especially a German discovery. It was not the 

 result of a blind chance, for its extraction required a manipulation 

 far more complex than the treatment of the sugar-cane. Whilst the 

 Indian reed, ripening under a tropical climate, aided by a powerful 

 and energetic growth, offered, so to speak, of its own accord, and 

 without expense to man, a sweet juice almost pure, it required, to 

 extract the same substance from beetroots, the slower but steadier 

 combination of reflection, sustained thought, and labour of the man 

 of the north, struggling against a less favoured climate." 



From an article in the London paper called ' Engineering,' I take 

 the following statistical facts : 



