148 • Manufacture of Sugar from Beet-Root. 



grown for cattle feeding, we look more to the general bulk than to 

 the character of any one of its particular constituents. For sugar 

 purposes, however, we must look at it in a special manner, as, to 

 a certain extent, the interests of the producer and the consumer 

 are here opposed to each other. The producer would, of course, 

 like to see as heavy a crop as he could obtain ; the manufacturer 

 cares less about a heavy crop, or even a large amount of crude 

 sugar, than for a crop that shall yield him a pure sugar mixed up 

 with a smaller proportion of the other accompanying ingredients, 

 which always considerably affect the cost of manufacture, and 

 necessarily reduce the amount of crystallizable sugar. In the 

 process of the manufacture a portion of the sugar must always be 

 lost, and this proportion increases with the amount of impurities 

 in the juice. It is important that this should be understood by 

 the producer, so that he might supply the desired variety, and 

 thus meet the interest of the consumer and keep the two depart- 

 ments distinct. On the Continent in many places this has been 

 disregarded, and the consumers have been forced to turn farmers 

 and grow beet for their own works. It would therefore appear 

 that we should endeavour to increase the proportion of sugar 

 without increasing the saline constituents of the crop ; and the 

 heavier our crop obtained under those conditions the better for 

 both producer and consumer.* 



Organic manures, if in a proper state, are found to increase the 

 crop ; but soluble saline manures injure the value of the sugar. 

 Thus salt, though an essential ingredient of the plant, acts pre- 

 judicially if in too large quantities. At Mannheim a field adjoin- 

 ing the salt-works was planted ; a large crop was produced, but 

 the percentage of sugar was lessened, and the yield was deficient. 



Ammoniacal manures increase the bulk, but are found to add 

 so largely to the proportion of organic compounds and water as to 

 render the subsequent operations more expensive. 



Boussingault (Economic Rurale) recommends that the land 

 should be kept in good condition by manuring; and Gasparin 

 (Cours d' Agriculture^ t. i. p. 655) states that the growers in the 

 Departement du Nord consider that the addition of farm-yard 

 dung increases the bulk of the crop in the proportion of 1*65 tons 

 for every ton of dung applied. M. de Dombasle (Annales de 

 Roville, t. vii. p. 255) upon a poor soil found the resulting in- 

 crease to be only about half as much ; and M. Crud (Economie 

 de I'Agric, § 255), upon a naturally rich soil (Boulonnais) ob- 

 tained an increase equal to 2.t Thus we see how little value 



* Notes sar un projet d'experience ayant pour but d'augmenter la richesse sac- 

 charine de la Betterave, par M. L. Vilmorin, (Annales de 1' Agriculture, tom.xxii.) 



t At a recent meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society (April 21st), Mr. 

 Gadesden of Ewell Castle, in describing Mr. Reeve's mode of cultivating sugar beet 

 andmangold-wurzel at Randall's Park Farm, near Leatherhead, stated that his crop 



