844 = 575 Iiiflucnce of Chemical Discoveries on 
Distillation of 
spirits. 
Influence of 
practical difficulties. For some years past sugar has not be 
produced from English-grown beets. 
At about the time when the works at Lavenham were opent 
Mr. Robert Campbell, of Buscott Park, in Berkshire, put i 
on his estate appliances of the most approved description 1 
the distillation of spirits from home-grown sugar-beets, b 
after a few years these works also were closed. 
Little consideration will show at once that, if the sug< 
beet industry is to succeed in England, the manufacturers w 
have to take large areas of land, farm it specially with a vi( 
to the produce they want, and become entirely independe 
of the farmers in the neighbourhood. It is well known th 
large, heavily manured crops not only yield less sugar per cer 
in the juice than smaller unmanured or sparingly manured croj 
but that the juice of the former, moreover, contains much mo 
saline and nitrogenous constituents than that of the latter, ai 
that a proportionately larger amount of sugar can be obtaim 
from juice less impregnated with saline and nitrogenous matte 
than from juice richer in these constituents. The interest 
the farmer, who sells his roots to the manufacturer at a give 
price, manifestly is to grow large roots, and with them a hea' 
crop per acre ; but this interest is directly opposed to that 
the manufacturer, whose policy naturally must be to restrict tl 
farmer in the use of manures which, like dung or guano, or nitr 
genous manures in general, are known to produce large roo 
Any such restrictions are impracticable in a country like Englan 
and hence the difficulty which manufacturers of beetroot sug 
will always find in England, viz. in being supplied by farme 
with a sufficient quantity of roots of a quality to make the beetro 
sugar industry successful. Generally speaking, and within certa 
limits, it may be said that the poorer and the smaller the crop p 
acre, the richer in sugar will be found the juice of the roots. 
The influence of different manures on the quality of the juii 
of beet roots is not less marked than that on the yield per aci 
Thus in the interesting experiments which were commenced 
1871 at Rothamsted, the average produce of roots during thn 
years was : — 
* Tons. 
With dnng alone, about IH 
„ and nitrate of soda, about 21 
„ and ammonia-salts 22 [ 
„ rape cake, and ammonia-salts . . . . 25 
„ and rape cake, about 25 
With mineral manure alone, about 6 
„ and nitrate 10 
and ammonia-siilts .. .. 1-iJ 
„ rape-cake, and ammoniivabout 20J 
„ and rape-cake, about .. .. ITi 
