Beet-root Distillery. 
73 
Fahr. ; in summer generally from 12° to 18^ (54° to 64° Fahr.) ; 
the extreme being 30^ and sometimes 32° (86° to 90° Fahr.). In 
autumn the temperature is generally mild, and ranges from 2° 
to 12° (36° to 54° Fahr.); but often in November there are 
sharp frosts, when the temperature comes down as low as 6° 
below zero (21° Fahr.). Spring is also frequently cold and 
sharp. The average fall of rain is about the same as it is in 
the central part of England. 
Having: thus given a general outline of the conditions under 
O o o 
which mangolds are cultivated in France, I will proceed to de- 
scribe the operation of distilling, with the most authentic results, 
which personal inquiries made during a recent journey to France 
have enabled me to gather. 
The existence in mangolds of substances from which alcohol 
could be extracted by distillation has been know n for many years, 
but it was only under the impulse of the high price of spirits 
resulting from the vine disease, and the prohibition by the French 
government of the distillation of grain in the year 1854, owing to 
the scarcity of corn, that this principle began to receive a practical 
application. In 1854-55 many sugar manufacturers, instead of 
making sugar, turned to the distillation of beet-root, for the value 
of alcohol had reached the unheard-of price of 177 francs per hec- 
tolitre, or, in English figures, about 6s. 6t/. a gallon. The substi- 
tution of the production of beet-root alcohol for that of sugar in 
the winter 1854-55 created in the sugar-returns no less a defi- 
ciency than 40,000 tons, and it is calculated that the quantity of 
alcohol that was distilled instead, reached at least 3^ millions of 
gallons. It is therefore not surprising that farmers should have 
turned their attention to so profitable a mode of disposing of their 
produce, and even at that early period of the history of beet-root 
distillation no less than one million gallons of beet-root spirit were 
produced from agricultural stills. Notwithstanding this great 
supply from a source hitherto neglected, the deficiency in the 
usual sources of production from the win^ district was so great, 
that, in order to meet the demands of French home consumption 
and export commerce, immense quantities of raw spirits were 
imported from this country. It is calculated that during the year 
1855 no less than 2,200,000 gallons of spirits were imported 
into France, chiefly from England. 
As long as this abnormal state of the spirit trade lasted, the 
system of distilling alcohol from beet-root, considered as a branch 
of agricultural industry, and carried on by the farmer upon his 
farm, found no detractor, for the advantages were undeniably 
great ; but when the market reassumed its previous condition, 
and the price of alcohol returned to its ordinary limits, there 
arose the question whether or not that operation really was an 
advantage to agriculture, and many inquiries and calculations 
