Beet Sugar and Cane Sugar. 219 
amount to close on 600,000 tons. It must be, rernembered 
in considering these very great fluctuations in returns, that, 
notwithstanding the extraordinary variation in yield, the 
breadth of land sown has steadily increased year by year, 
and that even the present season (the largest known) has 
been a favourable one only in France, while in Germany 
the weather was decidedly unfavourable, and in Russia so 
much so as to cause a failure of the crop. Although the 
beet crops will probably continue to increase, and although 
in a generally favourable season much heavier returns may 
be looked for, there is certainly some comfort for cane 
planters in the fact of the great uncertainty of the Euro- 
pean plant. The beet owes its rapid spread over the Con- 
tinent, in great measure, to its indirect use in agriculture. 
It gives a basis for the rotation of crops; its leaves and 
refuse are useful for cattle-feeding and for manure. But, 
on the other hand, the indirect uses of the cane have never 
been tried, and its refuse, although full of saccharine mat- 
ter, far from being made useful, is burnt. There is another 
advantage possessed by the beet in its being produced in 
the very countries where the sugar is wanted—thus saving 
the costly freight from the tropics. This certainly applies 
to countries in the interior of Europe; but countries having 
a seaboard, and which have to draw their supplies from the 
interior or from other European kingdoms, can frequently 
import sugar at nearly as cheap a rate as they can trans- 
port it. For instance, the latest quotations of freight from 
Mauritius to England is 30s. per ton, while to get sugar 
even from the north of France to London costs 25s. per 
ton; or, in other words, the carriage of sugar from Mauri- 
tius to England is only 3d. per cwt. dearer than from France 
to England. Thus, as far as freight is concerned, there is 
little fear, while the English market remains open, of cane 
sugar being shut out from consumption. It must, however, 
be expected, if the present state of things continues, that 
ina very few years the Continent will draw its supplies 
entirely from the beet, and also, that although England has 
as yet made no sugar from it, that the beetroot grows and 
thrives from John o’ Groat’s tothe Land’s End, and that 
a little more success on the Continent will cause the manu- 
facture of native sugar to be introduced here. It remains 
to be seen whether cane sugar can recover the ground lost; 
but there can be little doubt, had proper use been made of 
their advantages, that the colonial planters would not have 
been so far behind in the race as they are at present. The 
e 
