28 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY- 
There is also good ground for the opinion that, if successful 
at all in the United States, it will be found well adapted to 
Wisconsin, where the beet has already succeeded remarkably 
well, and where the experiment made, within the past year or 
two, at Fond du Lac, has been less than an entire success be¬ 
cause of a want of practical knowledge and the requisite cap¬ 
ital to conduct the operations upon an economical scale. 
In view of all the facts, I deem the subject one of sufficient 
importance to warrant a pretty full account* of the rise and 
development of this comparatively recent branch of industry; 
drawing from such sources of information as are reliable. 
Parties not hitherto engaged in the business, residing in 
Wisconsin, are making careful preparations to test the practi¬ 
cability of producing beets of good quality for the manufac¬ 
ture of sugar, in this section of the country, with the view of 
entering into the business in 1871, should the results of their 
experiments prove satisfactory. This is a prudent way of 
initiating a new enterprise, and one that’may be commended to 
all who feel |in interest in this and similar matters. When the 
beets are once grown, a competent chemist will be able to de¬ 
cide whether they are of a quality to warrant the next step— 
the erection of expensive establishments for the^manufacture 
of the sugar. 
t 
In a recent monthly report of the department of agricul¬ 
ture, these statements are made : 
“Foreign statistics represent the consumption of sugar of 
all kinds, in the last nine months of the year 1869, in France, 
to amount to 294,000 tons, against 252,000 tons in the same 
period of 1868, in the following proportions: 
* 
1869. 
1S68. 
Home. 
Tom. 
137,000 
67,000 
94,000 
Tons. 
129,000 
Colonial. 
49,000 
V 
Foreign. 
73,000 
♦ See an article in a subsequent portion of this volume, by H. F. Q. D’Aligny. 
