30 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
200. There are also thousands of spirit distilleries and. alkali 
works, coLateral branches of this industry. The consumption of 
beet sugar is extending on the continent and in Great Britain, 
where the industry as yet scarcely has a foot-hold. One manu¬ 
factory and one distillery are in operation in England. The 
prejudice of English refineries against it is rapidly giving 
away. 
“ In a recent letter, in reference to the beet-sugar enterprise, 
commenced several years since at Chatsworth, Illinois, by the 
Gennert Brothers, Mr. M. L. Dunlap states that the operations 
of these gentlemen having come to a stand-still through want 
of capital, and more from want of practical knowledge of the 
business, Messrs. Bunn, Keynolds, and others took hold of the 
business with the purpose of redeeming the enterprise and to 
test thoroughly the practicability of making sugar from the 
beet in competition with the sugar-cane. They secured the 
services of William Wiferling, a native of Saxorry, who has 
had twenty years’ experience as a sugar-maker in the best 
factories of Europe. He at once remodeled the works and 
successfully made up the crop of 1868, iimounting to six 
hundred barrels of granulated sugar. The beets, having been 
badly grows, yielded only about four per cent, of pure sugar. 
This year, one thousand two hundred acres were planted to 
beets, but the season was an unfortunate one for the experi¬ 
ment; the deluging rains sweeping away the plants and ruin¬ 
ing the crop. Only two hundred and fifty tons of beets, or 
about the ordinary yield of twenty-five acres, were saved. 
Not discouraged by this failure, wholly due to an unpropitions 
season, the company is making preparations for further 
experiments. During the fall one thousand six hundred 
acres have been plowed ; but whether the land will be planted 
to beets or to farm crops may depend somewhat on the results 
of certain new processes in separating the nitrates from the 
beet juice, now undergoing trial in some of the German fac¬ 
tories. An excess of nitrates in the prairie soils of the West 
is complained of, and it is thought that, in the absence of 
these, it would be only necessary to wash the beets, reduce 
