300 
BEET SUGAE AND CANE SUGAE. 
The astonishing progress made in late years by beetroot sugar is beginning to 
excite the greatest apprehension in the sugar-growing colonies. It is of the 
greatest interest to consider the different points that are likely to cause the pre¬ 
ponderance of the cane or of the beet. In the first place, the sugar-cane is a 
denizen of the tropics, where the condition of the weather at any given time can 
be counted upon with certainty. The beet, on the other hand, grows in the tem¬ 
perate zone, where, althougli the inhabitants neither suffer from excessive heat nor 
excessive cold, the weather is almost always unsettled and more or less uncertain. The 
beet, which is affected by too much rain or by too little, by unseasonable heat, by un¬ 
expected cold, or by too little or too much sunlight, is particularly uncertain in its 
growth, and the remarkable fluctuations in the crops during the last few years suffi¬ 
ciently establish this point. In 1859-GO the beet crop amounted to 438,000 tons 3 in 
18G0-61 it amounted to only 3GG,82G tons; in 1861-62 it again rose to 404,411 tons; 
and in 1862-63 to 450,000 tons. The season 18G3-G4 was a bad one, and the return 
sank to 385,741 tons, from which it again rose in 18G4-65 to 475,000 tons. This season 
it will probably amount to close on 600,000 tons. It must be remembered, in consider¬ 
ing 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 Eussia so much so as 
to cause a failure of the crop. Although the beet crops will probably continue to in¬ 
crease, 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 European plant. The beet owes its rapid spread over the Continent, 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 sac¬ 
charine matter, far from beiug made useful, is burnt. There is another advantage pos¬ 
sessed by the beet in its beiug 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 transport 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 Mauritius to England is only 3J. 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 in a 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 to the Land’s 
End, and that a little more success on the Continent will cause the manufacture 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 scale of duties meant to protect certain colonies against the effect of 
their ignorance and wastefulness, had the effect of lowering the standard of sugar- 
mnking all through the tropics. Instead of trying to make the finest possible sugar, the 
planter tried to make the worst, and the wasteful process that had existed in only a por¬ 
tion of the colonies became general. In the meantime the ablest chemists, engineers, 
and agriculturists were silently studying the constitution of the beetroot. Every inven¬ 
tion that could increase the saccharine yield of the root, facilitate its working, and im¬ 
prove the quality of the sugar, was eagerly applied; the yield of sugar from a given 
quantity of beetroot has been doubled in ten years, and white sugar can now be made in 
France at the first operation as cheaply as brown. Should such progress induce cane 
planters to despair? On the contrary, it should stimulate them to exertion. Surely if 
the cane contain twice as much saccharine matter as the beet; if it be far more easily 
