Sugar-Beet CuUication in Austria. 
331 
obtained, or is treated in various ways for separating the sugar which it 
still contains. 
If refined sugar is to be made, the juices and syrups are passed over 
bone-black to decolourise them, and the crystals are washed in the centri- 
fugal in order to make them perfectly white. Another method consists in 
treating the juice with sulphurous acid and purifying the crystals by wash- 
ing them with syrups of varying degrees of consistency until all the molasses 
adhering thereto are washed away. 
Feeding of Stock avith Refuse Pulp. 
The waste pi'oducts from the sugar factories consist of 
molasses and the refuse pulp. The molasses are used for 
various purposes, and their utilisation in distilleries is largely 
on the increase. The pulp makes a most excellent cattle 
food, its value being fully 20 per cent, that of the beet, and 
being often assessed at a higher figure. It is much esteemed 
for its fattening qualities, and it is regarded by some as 
equal if not superior in nutritive properties to the roots from 
which it is obtained. 
The pulp may be fed either in the fresh state or preserved 
in silos. Extensive experiments have recently been successfully 
made iu drying the pulp and preserving it in the dry state ; 
but this method is not yet generally adopted. 
It has, when fresh, a rather insipid or but slightly sweet 
taste, and rapidly turns faintly acid on keeping. It is given to 
fattening beasts mixed with strrw, chaff, meal, and similar 
materials, as by itself it is rather deficient in flesh-forming 
compounds. Kept for any length of time, it turns decidedly 
acid, and on some of the farms that I visited, there was a very 
pungent odour in the mixing room. It is, however, quite as 
much relished in this state by cattle and sheep as when fresh, 
probably because the lactic acid, which is generated during the 
time of keeping, makes it more digestible. Except in its more ' 
acid taste, old pulp differs but slightly in its appearance and 
general character from new. 
I saw at both the factories I visited a great number of 
very fine animals in process of fattening, though their pedigree 
seemed to be of a nondescript order. Herr Kuffaer of Lund en- 
burg has quite a reputation for his cattle, and at the show of 
butcher's beasts held at Vienna during last year's exhibition, a 
Diploma of Honour was unanimously awarded to him by the 
jury for his excellent collection of fat cattle. At Lundenburg 
about 2,000 beasts are fattened every year. Some of them 
consist of beasts who have done their share of work in the 
fields ; but the majority are animals bought directly at cattle 
