70 
Beet-root Distillery. 
and elsewhere, has so mysteriously scattered ruin and desolation 
throughout the vine districts of France, has given birth to 
another manufacturing operation, readily adapted to the farm, — 
I mean the distillery of beet-root ; and the question I have now 
to examine is, whether that operation ceases to be advantageous 
with the dire necessity that gave it birth, or whether it may be 
classed as a lucrative adjunct to agricultural pursuits, easy in its 
operation, and at all times attended with ultimate profit ? My 
present object is to examine the bearings of this problem, by 
faithfully and impartially reproducing the arguments of both 
parties, in order that every one may form his own conclusions 
from the facts I shall bring forward ; for it must be understood 
that the advantages of beet-root distillery are by no means uni- 
versally admitted in France : it is still the subject of contro- 
versy ; and, as is generally the case when arguments are influenced 
by the excitement of partisanship or the heat of discussion, it 
is not an easy task to disentangle truth from error. 
The cultivation of beet-root is chiefly confined to the North of 
France and the neighbourhood of Paris. In these districts there 
are several departments where it forms the staple of agricultural 
produce, principally for the manufacture of sugar ; these are : 
the Pas-de- Calais, Nord, Aisne, Somme, and Seine-Injerieure. 
In the departments of Oise, Seine, Seine et Oi.ie, Seine et Marne, 
mangolds are cultivated exclusively as food for cattle, as they are 
in England ; and it is principally in these districts that the beet- 
root distilleries have been established. Beet-roots, together with 
carrots, are also cultivated in other parts of France, but more as an 
exception than as a rule. In the South, for instance, it is alleged 
that the climate is too dry ; although, in a recent tour through 
the whole of the southern districts of France, I have seen fields 
of mangold, remarkable for the luxuriance and freshness of 
the foliage, and comparative size of the root. I imagine that by 
the use of superphosphate of lime, which, by-the-bye, does not 
seem to be better known in France than guano was in England 
fifty years ago, crops of mangold could be grown in almost 
every part of the South of France, especially in that magnificent 
plain extending from the ocean to the Mediterranean, — which 
includes the valleys of the Garonne and the Lot, and, in fact, 
the whole district traversed by the Grand Junction Canal from 
Cette to Bordeaux. The virgin savannahs of the A'^ew World 
can alone bear a comparison with the luxuriance of that rich 
plain through which flow the Garonne and its lateral canal ; and 
yet it must be confessed that the crops are by no means equal to 
the natural fertility of the soil, owing to want of drainage, shallow 
cultivation, and general ignorance. 
In those districts of the North of France where sugar manu- 
