COAXING THE SUGAR BEET 
He sets his scientists at work trying to make sugar from 
some other plant. They hit on the beet. 
From that time the cultivation of beets as a source of 
sugar steadily increased in Europe. To make this easy 
there was need of bigger and sweeter beets. For a hun¬ 
dred years the farmers of Europe have steadily bred up 
the beet, until those used for sugar-making have come to 
be of a surprising size. 
The fact that the beet plant stores sugar in its root is 
an excellent proof that these plants make sugar. It has 
been shown that green leaves in the sunshine are sugar 
factories. They take carbon from the carbon dioxide of 
the air, and sugar is chiefly carbon and water. So the 
green leaves turn this carbon and water into sugar, which 
the beet stores in its roots, and man finds a way to take 
it out and turn it into the white crystals which we use on 
our cereal at breakfast. 
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