COMMUNICATIONS. 
BEET SUGAR MAKING IN SAUIv COUNTY. 
Hon. J. W. Hoyt, Secretary Wisconsin State Agricultural Society: 
Dear Sir : Having promised you to make a report of the 
beet-sugar business in this locality, I beg your acceptance of 
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the following: 
We have suffered many embarrassments from first to last. 
The first year we were not able to finish the factory in time; 
consequently, only a small proportion of the beets grown could 
be worked up. 
Last summer the drouth injured the beets in such a manner 
that the yield per acre was not more than four and a half tons 
on the average; and even those actually produced did not 
properly mature. Consequently the saccharine matter was less 
than sufficient to make a profitable season’s manufacture. 
Polarization showed ten to twelve per cent, instead of fourteen 
to sixteen per cent. 
You know that the value of the sugar beet is only reckoned 
by the proportion of saccharine matter it contains—that the 
proportion of sugar to the whole amount of saccharine matter 
must not be below eighty-two per cent., if sugar-making is to 
be carried on with profit. 
In this respect we have a decided advantage in this partic¬ 
ular district of the state. The soil is mild and normal for 
raising beets; extraordinary salts not being present in injuri¬ 
ous proportions; saltpetre, which, in some localities, has oc¬ 
casioned the total failure of enterprises like ours, is not found 
here at all. This important fact gives vitality to our compa¬ 
ny, and guarantees it a future as the reward ot patient, per¬ 
sistent effort. 
