Sugar-Beets and Beetroot Distillation. 
79 
sequontly, is never interrupted by excessive heat, over which 
there is no control in ordinary stills. 
The tank lor the collection of the fusel-oil is placed below 
the column : it holds the heavy products of distillation, which 
are produced during^ the rectification, and are prevented from be- 
coming mixed with tlie alcoholic liquid in the boiler. Savalle's 
1 rectifying stills are self-regulating, and can be managed by any 
ordinary intelligent labourer. 
Perfectly rectified beetroot spirit is identical with pure spirit 
of wine, and commands in the open market as high a price as 
the best grain spirit ; it is applicable for the production of per- 
fumes, liqueurs, and all purposes for which alcohol, free from 
fusel-oil and similar by-products of fermentation, is required. 
An experience extending over three years has convinced Mr, 
Duncan that beetroot sugar can be profitably manufactured in 
England; and as the distillation of spirits from beetroots is 
acknowledged to be even a more profitable operation than the 
manufacture of sugar, beetroot distilleries are likely ere long to 
be established in various districts in England favourable to the 
growth of sugar-beets. There is every prospect that such dis- 
tilleries, when managed by men of good business habits and 
capital, and possessing experience and skill, will yield a very 
I profitable return for the capital employed in the undertaking. 
It may perhaps be said that as the attempts which were made 
some ten or twelve years ago to establish beetroot distilleries 
in this country turned out complete failures, the renewal of the 
attempt to manufacture alcohol from beets is not likely to suc- 
! ceed better than in former years. There are, however, good 
reasons why beetroot distilleries did not then succeed. During 
my residence at Cirencester I had the opportunity of becoming 
intimately acquainted with the operations in a mangold-wurzel 
distillery, which was established about ten years ago at Minety, 
a village a few miles from Cirencester. Like all the other man- 
gold distilleries erected at that time, the Minety beetroot distil- 
lery, after a few seasons, had to be abandoned as an unprofitable 
I speculation. 
' The roots which were employed in that distillery and in other 
distilleries, some ten years ago, were common mangolds, for 
whiqh the farmers in the neighbourhood of the works were paid 
1/. a ton by the company. 
It was, of course, the interest of the farmers who supplied the 
I distillery with mangolds, to grow heavy crops per acre. The 
mangolds, therefore, were strongly manured with rotten dung, 
guano, and other artificial manures rich in nitrogenous com- 
pounds, and calculated to produce large-sized roots. At that 
