88 2 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April r, 1882. 
wages of their labour will reach, the ears of the Lord 
of Sabaoth and will he heard and answered. 
We call the special attention of our merchants and 
planters to the review of a pamphlet by the great 
Dutch Coffee House of Schroffer & Co. in another 
column : it is specially encouraging. 
COFFEE "MIXTURES." 
The following draft memorial is in circulation : — 
To the Lords Commissioners of H. M. Treasury. 
London, 6th Feb. 1882. 
The attention of your memorialists has been drawn to a 
minute of Treasury dated 20th January 1882, which directs 
H. M. Board of Customs to permit the importation, under 
a duty of 2d per lb., of coffee or chicory, roasted and 
ground, mixed, without reference to the proportion of the 
mixture ; and the permission to extend to any other veget- 
able matter applciable to the use of chicory or coffee. 
Your memorialists beg to submit to the consideration of 
your Lordships the following objections to the above 
order : — 
1st. — That it is most unwise to give such sanction to 
practices which tend to deteriorate so valuable and whole- 
some a beverage, so well fitted to advance temperate 
habits among the people. 
2nd. — That the legislator has been most desirous 
of protecting the food of the people from adulterations, 
and that the order just issued by the Treasury is in contra- 
diction with the letter and the spirit of the Acts of 
Parliament 38 and 3 9 Victoria, chap. 63, clauses 6 and 8. 
3rd. — That the substances, which it is proposed to admit 
in a mixed state with coffee, would of themselves find no 
favour, being of comparatively small value ; and it is only 
because they assume the name of coffee, or are found in 
association with this name, that they become saleable. 
4th. — That no good reason can be shown why coffee 
should not deserve as fair a treatment as other articles of 
Indian or Colonial produce, such as tea for instance where 
regulations prohibit the sale of the pure article, with 
any mixture whatsoever, and even with " exhausted tea." 
5th. — That the chief reason why coffee has fallen into 
disfavor in this country is the systematic way in which 
it has been adulterated, and the consequent difficulty ex- 
perienced by the great_ mass of population in obtaining 
not merely a pure article, but a wholesome and palatable 
beverage suitable to their means. The poor classes pur- 
chasing coffee in small quantities will always ask for it 
ready ground. 
6. — That coffee is grown in the Briiish Possessions in 
India, Ceylon, Jamaica, and other Colonies, at the cost of 
many millions of English capital, its cultivation and pre- 
paration giving emnloyment to many thousands of British 
subjects: that Ceylon in 1877 exported 105,000,100 lb. 
of coffee and British India about £0,000,000. lb. that by far 
the larger of those crops used to find their way to this 
country, which consumes chiefly Ceylon and Indian coffee ; 
that London is gradually losing a portion of its trade, as 
the crops are shipped now more and more to the con- 
tinent direct, to the detriment of British sh-pping, and 
of English importers, dealers, brokers and others interested 
in this article. 
7th. — That the consumption of coffee in this country, 
which, in 1847, with a duty nearly three times as heavy 
as the present one, was 37,472,153 lb. or about 21b. per 
head of population, has now declined in 1881 to 31,9 13,400 lb. 
or less than 1 lb. per head, nothwithstanding the large 
increase of population, and they believe that.the consunip 
tion, if it had not been checked by unfair legislation, 
would probably exceed now 60.000,000 lb. 
For those reasons your memorialists deem the effect 
ofthiR treasury order to be of such injury to the con- 
sumption of coffee, and the well-being of the community, 
that they feel constrained to urge its withdrawal. 
AGRICULTURE ON THE CONTINENT OF 
EUROPE. 
(Special letter.) 
BEET-SUGAR — VACCINATION OF LIVE-STOCK — POULTRY AND 
BABBIT REARING. 
Paris, 28th January. 
Farmers have taken stock of 1881, and appeal' on the 
whole not to be dissatisfied with the results. The price 
of wheat, which may be taken as the standard of profits, 
has been more advantageous, without affecting seriously 
the pockets of the consumers. The vintage has been 
better, despite phylloxera and frost ; the wine industry 
of the country is not compromised : new vineyards are 
coming into existence, and, if proprietors cannot extirp- 
ate the phylloxera, they can at least protect themselves 
against its ravages. Live stock has left not a little to 
be desired ; this is due to short supplies of food : the 
price for fat stock was high, but then a deficiency of 
fodder made it difficult to prepare cattle for the butcher. 
To protect the beet sugar interest, so-called free-trade 
farmers demand that the duty of fs. 20 per cwt. be main- 
tained on colonial sugars, and the home tax reduced to 
2 J francs per ton of beet delivered at the factory. Agri- 
culture has been endowed with a special minister since 
over ten months, but how long that business-like arrange- 
ment may be continued is uncertain. 
In the north of France, sugar beet is viewed by agri- 
culturists as a cornucopia. It possesses the advantage 
of feeding stock, cheaply under conditions where high 
farming is practised ; the products from beet-sugar, mo- 
lasses, alcohol, repay in a great measure the expenses 
of production, while the pulp, varying in price from fs. 10 
to 15 per ton, following not so much quality, as locality, 
feeds working bullocks, then fats them off, in addition 
to supporting sheep and cows. The value of the manure 
must not be omitted. In the department of the Nord, 
25 per cent of the arable soil is under beet, which real- 
izes on an average fs. 20 per ton. About 2£ tons of pulp 
are viewed as equal to one ton of ordinary hay. At 
Roye, Messrs. Pluchet and Frisard cultivate 1,500 acres 
of sugar beet, less 25 in meadow; the rotation is tri- 
ennial : beet, wheat or rye, oats and clover. They employ 
160 bullocks, 30 horses, and a steam plough. The sugar 
beet worked up during the season is 150 tons per day. 
This establishment was the first to employ the ex- 
traction of beet juice by the process of diffusion, now 
so general, and which has superseded the oid method of 
pressing the pulp in sacks in hydraulic machines. The 
principle of diffusion reposes on osmose and exosmose, 
the same laws which regulate the flow of sap in plants. 
If on a glass of water a little wine be carefully poured, 
and the air kept perfectly still, the wine, being lighter, 
will float, but in time will be found to have gradually 
become mixed, layers-like, in the water. Or, if a bladder 
containing a solution of sugar be hermetically fastened 
and suspended, not a drop of the contents will escape. 
But if the bladder be placed in a vase of water, the 
solution will exude through the pores of the membrane, 
the water also passing inwards at the same time rapidly. 
The liquids exchange places. This is the process of 
diffusion. The beet is cut up into little slices, placed 
in an iron cylinder, and hot water added, as the change 
thus provoked is more rapid. The cellules of the beet 
act the role of the membrane of the bladder ; they empty 
their sugar and salts into the water when the solution 
is duly drained off, and the pulp taken out and pressed 
to obtain all the liquid. Under the ancient press method 
from 4 to 6 per cent of useful substances were lost ; 
by the diffusion process only about a half. In other 
words 6J per cent of sugar is now obtained, against 5£ 
formerly, which on 15,000 tons of roots means 1,000 
sacks more of sugar. The labour too is less. The pulp 
from the beet treated by the diffusion plan contains from 
10 to 15 per cent more water, hence, less esteemed by 
farmers, but then it costs fs. 10 less per ton, and when 
