1 8 
W. G. Freeman. 
CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS IN ECONOMIC BOTANY 
(Continued from Vol. V., p. 86), 
By William G. Freeman. 
The Sugar Beet. 
The sugar beet is a cultivated variety of Beta maritima. The 
wild, comparatively slender-rooted form of the species is well- 
known in this country as a maritime plant, occurring on sea shores, 
in clefts and on ledges on sea cliffs and similar situations. It 
ranges through the Mediterranean region, the shore of the Caspian, 
Persia, and the Canary Islands. The plant was known to cultivation 
before the Christian Era, and the ancients were familiar with red 
and white-fleshed varieties. 
From the original type, the wild Beta maritima, there have been 
obtained by selection, three distinct cultivated races, the garden 
beet, the mangold wurzel, and the sugar beet. The characteristics 
of the two former are familiar to everyone, they are grown respec¬ 
tively as a vegetable, and as food for cattle. The sugar beet is 
white fleshed, not red as the ordinary beet, and is more fibrous and 
roots deeper in the soil than the mangold wurzel. Selection along 
different lines has produced very wide divergence in the sugar 
contents of the two last named plants, and whilst the mangold 
wurzel contains more or less about 8 per cent, of sugars, the sugar 
beet contains as much as 18 per cent, of these same bodies. Our 
immediate interest however is centred in the sugar beet, the 
cultivation of which is so important as to place Europe first amongst 
the continents as regards sugar-production, a position attained 
during the past century and affording perhaps the most striking 
example of the successful application of science to industry in the 
plant world. 
Historical. 
In 1580 Olivier des Serres recorded that the red beet had not 
long been introduced into Europe and that “the juice yielded on 
boiling is similar to sugar sirup.” No practical result followed this 
and attention was not directed to the beet as a possible commercial 
source of sugar until 1747 when Marggraf who had investigated a 
large number of plants to ascertain their sugar contents, published 
his “ Experiences Cliymiques fait,es clans le dessein de tirer un veritable 
sucre de diverses pinnies qui croissent dans nos countrees .” He sliced 
