190 



BEET ROOT SUGAE. 



The rapid progress of tlie production of beet root sugar on the 

 continent, especially in Prance, Eelginm, GrernianT. Austria, and 

 Hassia, and its recent introduction and cultivation as an article of 

 commerce in Ireland, renders the detail of its culture and manu- 

 facture on the continent interesting. I have, therefore, been in- 

 duced to bestow some pains on an investigation of the rise and 

 progress of its production and consumption in those countries. 



During the past three years, the smallest estimate which can be 

 formed of the quantity of cane sugar that has been replaced by 

 beet root sugar in the chief European countries, is about 80,000 

 tons annually, vdth. the certainty that, year after year, the con- 

 sumption will become exclusively confined to the former, to the 

 greater exslusion of the latter ; unless some great change shall 

 take place in the relative perfection and manufacture of the two 

 different descriptions of produce. 



Although, observes the Econoinist, the beet root sugar produced 

 in France, Belgium, Germany, and other parts of the continent 

 is not brought into competitionin our own markets with the produce 

 of the British colonies, yet it must be plain that the exclusion of so 

 much foreign cane sugar from the continent, which was formerly 

 consumed there, must throw a much larger quantity of Cuba and 

 Brazilian sugar upon this market ; and by this means the increased 

 production of beet root sugar, even in those countries where it is 

 highly protected, does indirectly increase the competition among 

 the producers of cane sugar in our market. 



So early as 1747, a chemist of Berlin, named Margraf, discovered 

 that beet root contained a certain quantity of sugar, but it was 

 not until 1796 that the discovery was properly brought under the 

 attention of the scientifi.c in Eui'ope by Achard, who was also a 

 chemist and resident of Berlin, and who published a circumstantial 

 account of the progress by which he extracted from 3 to 4 per 

 cent, of sugar from beet root. 



Several attempts have been made, from time to time, to manu- 

 facture beet root sugar in England, but never, hitherto, on a large 

 and systematic scale. Some years ago a company was established 

 for the purpose, but they did not proceed in their operations. 



A refinery of sugar from the beet root was erected at Thames 

 Bank, Chelsea, in the early part of 1837. Duiing the summer of 

 1839 a great many acres of land were put into cultivation with the 

 root, at Wandsworth and other places in the vicinity of the 

 metropolis. The machinery used in the manufacture was princi- 

 pally on the plan of the vacuum pans, and a fine refined sugar was 

 produced from the juice by the first process of evaporation, after 

 it had undergone discolorization. Another part of the premises 

 was appropriated to the manufacture of coarse brown paper from 

 the refuse, for which it is extensively used in Erance. 



A refinery was also established about this period at Belfast, in 

 the vicinity of which town upwards of 200 acre^ of land were put 

 into cultivation with beet root for the manufiictnre of sugar. 



