350 
Sugar-Beet Cvltivation in Austria. 
the sugar is of secondary interest only, from the point of view 
of the readers of this Journal, and must be dismissed therefore 
in a few words. The machinery for sugar manufacture is 
somewhat complicated, and appears to become more so year by 
year : for at the Agricultural Exhibition held in the Prater at 
Vienna last autumn, there were quite a number of novelties for 
the improvement of different branches of the process claiming 
attention in the very interesting pavilion erected by the Central 
Society for the Beet-sugar Industry in the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy.' 
The system of manufacture has been greatly changed since the 
invention by Julius Robei't, of Seelowitz, of the diffusion process, 
and, as at present conducted, is best described in the words used 
by Mr. H. W. Wiley, Chemist to the United States Department 
of Agriculture, in a very valuable Memorandum on the Culture 
of the Sugar-Beet (Farmer's Bulletin, No. 3), recently published 
by his Department.- 
The teets are first conveyed to wasliing-tanks provided with suitable 
apparatus for keeping them in motion and transferring them toward the 
end from which the fresh water enters, in order that the whole of the 
adhering soil, together with any sand and pebbles, may be completely re- 
moved. By a suitable elevator the beets are next taken to a point above 
the centre of the battery, whence they are dropped into a slicing apparatus 
by which they are sliced into thin pieces of greater or less length, so that 
when placed in the cells of the battery they will not lie so closely together 
as to prevent the circulation of the diffusion juices. The slices next pass 
into the diffusion battery in which the sugar is extracted. The extracted 
slices are carried through a press by which a portion of the water is re- 
moved, and they are then in suitable condition for use as cattle food. 
The diffusion juices are carried to carbonatation or saturation tanks, where 
they are treated with from 2 to 3 per cent, of their weight of lime and after- 
ward with carbonic acid until nearly all of the lime is precipitated. The slightly 
alkaline juices are next passed through tilter presses by which the precipi- 
tated lime and other matter are removed. The juices pass next to a second 
set of carbonatation tanks, in which they undergo a treatment in each par- 
ticular similar to the one just mentioned, except that the quantity of lime 
added to the second saturation is very small as compared with that of the 
first. 
The refiltered juices from the second saturation are carried to the 
multiple-efi'ect vacuum-pan and reduced to the condition of syrup. The 
syrups are taken into the vacuum strike pan and reduced to sugar, con- 
taining from 6 to 10 per cent, of water. The uncrystallised syrups, together 
with the water, are separated from the sugar by the centrifugals, and form 
the molasses. The molasses is either reboiled and a second crop of crystals 
' For a description of the exhibits in this pavilion, see " OeBterrcichi^ch- 
Ij'nijai-isiclie ZeUxrhrift fur Ziiokcr- Industrie vnd La/i tvirt/ischaft,'^ Jahrgang 
xix. Heft iv. (1890). 
- 'I he publications of the Washington Department of Agriculture compel 
admiration for their succinctness and practical character. I have found Mr. 
Wiley's paper invaluable in the preparation of this ."fketch, and have not 
hesitated to quote freely from it. 
