6 
EXPERIMENTS WITH SUGAR BEETS. 
empties the vegetables into a slicer, in which revolving 
knives quickly cut the beets into long slices. These, in 
turn, fall into the diffusion battery, consisting of twelve 
cells, and there undergo the juice-extracting process, 
becoming more and more of the character of molasses as 
each cell is passed. Defacation by lime and heat is then 
commenced, after which the lime is removed by carbonic 
acid gas. The mass is then filtered by double process, 
evaporated to crystallize, and the sugar finally separated 
from the molasses. The first molasses is evaporated again 
to furnish a second crop of sugar, and a third and a 
fourth crop is subsequently obtained. The final molasses 
is too offensive for food, and is converted into potash. 
The pulp is disposed of for cattle-fattening purposes.” 
“ With reference to what is being done in California in 
‘the way of beet culture for sugar purposes, it was learned 
that last year in the vicinitv of Watsonville the yield was 
14,000 tons, bringing to the planter an average of $5.04 per 
ton. It costs fifteen cents a ton to plow up, forty cents a 
ton to top (a woman can top four tons a day), fifteen cents a 
ton to load and from fifty to seventy-five cents a ton to haul 
a distance of two and a half miles. It costs about $29 to 
harvest an acre, which yields a crop valued at $110, so that 
the planter gains $81 for planting and thinning. One man 
residing three miles from the factory gives the following as 
the result of the cultivation of a ten-acre field : 
Plowing_$ 50.00 
Thinning_ 190.00 
Topping_ 153.00 
Hauling_ 150.00 
Total___$543.00 
Yield, tons, 154, value_$972.80 
Outlay_ 543.00 
Profit_$429.80 
Profit per acre_$ 42.90 
