THE SUGAR BEET.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 15, 4 June 1872, Page 3

THE SUGAR BEET.

fsruonucrris. 'i ifi; iii'l stry of ■ aking sugar from the beet is about If) 1)0 established i t this country. Farmers intent upon crowing the crop will already have commenced to prepare the land for fjio reception of the seed in the corning spring, or will short;ly ho thinking of ho doing, in ordor to supply roots 1,0 the factories to be oroolcd :i.rifl in working order by next jiuturnu. Wo jjurpo.se, therefore, to take tho subjoet in band, arid treat it both in the grower's and manufacturer's point of view, to enumerate for t,bo benefit, of the farmer flu; various .systems of cultivation adopted in other countries, and for the good of the rnanufactiii'er the difficulties which attend tho production of sugar from this source. Prior to the year 1747 sugar was only known to exist in the sugar-cane and from | tint source alone w.ib it obt.i.iucd. Tho ' Gorman chemist Marrgraf was tin; first to point out its presetioo in many variolic.! of . root, but particularly in the boot-root. Flowever, M arggraf's discovery was not irnme- | dintely turned to profitable account ; his ; talented pupil, Arohard, first undertook the; examination of ;i. collection of Furop'an plants in order to asoert lin I,hose from which ! sugar could bo advantageously obtained, and in- first extracted it from oilier sources than tho mu</;ir-eano, in any qualit I .y and in a practical manner. Nevertheless, tho bootsugar industry owes its origin to A/arggiaf's discovery and may bejnstly said lo date from it. ; 'I he art of ma nil fact uring- from the beet-root is by no means simple iu its mini- ; puhd.ion. it, is not, tin; issue of mere chance, 1 but the result of long, yet ur.interrujjted inves- ; I i./a lion'. The first expori mental factory was erected with the aid of the t, at, i ... 1 (Sleiuau, in lower Silesia, an' l tho results : were so ; al isl'aelory that, a second was at once j established at, Stehlen. The new industry \ !>Tew verv rapidly, and soon spread itself over ! I'Vance, (ieruianv and liussia.. '1 lie (ioi'eruiniMil of these stales rendered it every! i ■ i ii • iii ra : e)i ic! 11, and voted sums ol j money to ils furtherance. '.'Vance alone, in ! ! Ik 1 year I s ! I, alio! teil v M i.,(«.)(I sterling to the J ;i 11 v a i ice i no 111. of the industry, nor were the j (iiivcrninenls ol (icriuany and liussia careless in eoniiii!;- to its aid. Though the industry : was first slartel in Germany, and owed its i origin to (In! labours of a, German chemist, ; yet it was not, Ion;.;' ere .France obtained ! supremacy, and Germany fell away into com- | parative i i ishrn 11 i - • • i • i< -e, .and to l''ranee is due J t he honour of having brought it, I o p ->r!eel,ion. j '.Numerous works wort; soon published on I the cultivation (d the beet and the manufacture of sugar from it., both in the French and j Gentian languagos, and among them were | those of Achai'd, I'ayen and Ghaptal, which | even to the present day may be regarded as j standard writings. The discovery of the | process of decolourising the syrup by means j ofchareoal. especially animal charcoal. greatly i inllueneed the percentage ol sugar obtained ; ; Ibr, where previous to the discovery 2 per | cent, was extracted, and o per cent was eon- j sidered a largo yield, subsequently to it the j amount :vt once advanced to betveon 0 and (). The earlier factories werc'erectcd during the continental wars of the latter part, of the last and the early portion of the present century ; and, so long- as the importation of sugar from Eastern countries was excluded, and tho price of (lie staple ranged very h gh, manufaciuxvrs j were enabled to work their establishments profitably even when the sugar obtained did not exceed '2 per cent. But so soon as the j peace was proclaimed, and suo'ar began to i flow in from other sources, tho high prices | fell, and manufacturers were compelled to j contrive some means of raising' the yield, and ; of simplifying generally toe process of mauu- | fact live. Fortunately, the human mind is very ! elastic, and when an alteration iu circumstances involves a new and important industry, a method ot overcoming the difficulty is soon devised. Just so was itin the above instance. A rational system of manufacture was promptly adopted, and the cloud which hung over and menaced.the beet.sugar industry was for ever swept, away. . The- industry now stands firmly as a well-rooted tree, which expands its branches from the south of France j to the northern-shores of Silesia, from Italy j to England and the colder regions of Sweden, j It might not be uninteresting" to our readers j if we were briefly to enumerate from the latest, i statistics the present condition of the industry ; in some of the principal manufacturing- eoun- j tries in Europe. In France there exists 434 j■factories, which extract on an average's cwt- of sugar annually. Germany ; with 202 factories, produces -A.C19,040 cwt. j Russia, with 300, manufactures 3,792,000 cwt, I and Austria, 212, furnishes 3,400,000 cwt. ; It, is obvious then, that the beet-sugar industry . is a very considerable one in each of the i above-named countries. Of them all Germany obtains by far the largest percentage of sugar fiom .a given quantity of roots ; for from ( oL irfTvti94 cwts. of beets she extracted i

14,019,040 cwfc of sugar, whereas France only ; obtained 5,800,000 cwt from 82,850,000 cwtof roots. Moroovor, Germany possesses the most nctfbfttly fionstructe'l m-ichinpry, and in no ofh'T country cau it be ho Biibshmtiaily arid clif-aply mfinnrsictnnrd. However, we will n )t. preface our remarks with any further description of the founding and development of the; , industry, but will rather pass on to a more : .practical and for us more important, branch lof the subject.—" Australasian." i (To b< , , continued.)