SUGAE. 



191 



The experience of Prance ought to be a sufficient guarantee that 

 the manufacture of beet root sugar is not a speculative but a great 

 staple trade, in whicb the supply can be regulated by the demand, 

 with a precision scarcely attainable in any other case, and when, 

 in addition, this demand tends rather to increase than to diminish. 

 That the trade is profitable there can also be no doubt from the 

 large capital embarked in it on the Continent — a capital which is 

 steadily increasing even in France, where protection has been 

 gradually witlidrawn, and where, since 1848, it has competed upon 

 equal terms with colonial sugars. 



The produce of France in 1851 was nearly 60,000 tons. The 

 beet root sugar made in the ZoUvereinin 1851 was about 45,000 

 tons. Probably half as much more as is made in France and the 

 Zollverein, is made in all the other parts of the Continent. In 

 Belgium, the quantity made is said to be 7,000 tons ; in E-ussia, 

 35,000 ; making a total of beet root sugar now manufactured in 

 Europe of at least 150,000 and probably more, or nearly one-sixth 

 part of the present consumption of Europe, America, and our 

 various colonies. In 1847 this was estimated at upwards of 

 1,000,000 tons ; and, as the production has increased considerably 

 since that period, it is now not less than 1,100,000 tons. 

 The soil of the Continent, it is said, will give 16 tons to the acre, 

 and that of Ireland, 26 tons to the acre. The former yields from 

 6 to 7 per cent. — the latter from 7 to 8 per cent, as the extreme 

 maximum strength of saccharine matter. The cost of the root in 

 Ireland — for it is with that, and not with the cost of the Continental 

 root, with Avhich the West Indies will have to contend — is said to 

 be at the rate of 16s, per ton this ; but will probably be 13s. next 

 season. The cost of manufacture is set down at £7 5s, per ton. 

 Calculating the yield of the root to be 7^ lbs. to every 100 lbs., 

 for 26 tons the yield would be nearly 2 tons of sugar, which 

 would give about £9 10s. per ton, putting down the raw material 

 to cost 143. 6d. per ton, the medium between 16s. and 13s. Thus 

 a ton of Irish-grown and manufactured beet root sugar, would 

 cost £16 15s. per ton. Mr. Sullivan, the scientific guide to those 

 who are undertaking to make beet root sugar at MountmeUick, 

 Queen's County, Ireland, estimates the cost of obtaining pure 

 sugar at from £16 17s. to £19 18s. per ton, according to the 

 quantity of sugar in the root. 



Beet root is a vegetable of large circumference, at the upper 

 end nine to eleven inches in diameter. There are several kinds. 

 That wliich is considered to yield the most sugar is the white or 

 Silesian beet {Beta alba). It is smaller than the mangel wurzel, 

 and more compact, and appears in its texture to be more like the 

 Swedish turnip. For the manufacture of sugar, the smaller 

 beets, of which the roots weigh onlj^ one or two poimds, were pre- 

 ferred by Chaptal, who, besides being a celebrated chemist, was 

 also a practical agriculturist and a manufacturer of sugar from 

 beet root. After the white beet follows the yellow (beta major), 

 then the red (beia Tomana), and lastly the common or field beet root 



