and 3, reducing the purified juice to crystals., The principles on which' the different establishments work are everywhere the same; but the means employed to reach the same end vary considerably. The mode of extracting the juice varies more than anything else, the great aim being to obtain the greatest possible quantity with the least foreign matter. Beets contain, besides fiber, sugar and water, vegetable albumen, organic acids and alkalies, in combination with organic and inorganic acids.

The extraction of juice is done by the following process: hydraulic presses, centrifugal machines, green maceration, dry maceration, and diffusion. To these five methods may be added the system of doublepressing with hydraulic presses, and centrifugal machines in combination with hydraulic presses. These different methods are in regular practical use; others have been employed by way of experiment. They are all old, with the exception of "diffusion;" all have their advantages, and all are open to objections. The use of hydraulic presses is the most extended, and probably three-fourths of all the sugar made has passed through the press process.

In the early history of beet sugar it was considered essential to add sulphuric acid, to prevent the juice from deteriorating, but this system was discarded long ago, giving place to the opposite principle. The juice, after its extraction, is clarified with lime, in which great progress has been made. In the early days of beet-sugar manufacture, after the addition of acids was discontinued, lime was employed in limited quantities to purify the beet juice, from one-half to three-fourths of one per cent., beginning with the opening of the season at the lower figure, working up to the higher as the season advanced and the beets deteriorated. With improved machinery, however, lime is employed almost without limit; and it is not uncommon to use three per cent. of lime In purifying beet juice three distinct processes are in use, although in each the agent used is heat in combination with lime. These processes are mostly named after their inventors. The oldest and simplest process, and which is still found in many sugar-works, is the simple heating of beet juice to about one hundred and sixty-five degrees, adding, at that temperature, one-half to three-fourths per cent. of newly slaked lime, and raising the heat, as fast as possible, to the boiling point. The action of lime and heat coagulates the vegetable albumen, and changes many of the organic combinations. Lime and impurities form a heavy, tough scum, which covers the surface, while the bright and clear juice can be drawn from under it. This bright juice, mixed with other foreign matter, contains considerable lime in solution. In former years animal bone coal was the only ingredient employed to separate the lime from the juice. Many factories may be found, up to this day, which work by this simple process; but the greatest number employ carbonic acid to precipitate the lime, in the form of carbonate of lime. The carbonic acid employed for that purpose is generated simply by the burning of coke, drawn into the juice by a mixture of carbonic acid and carbonic oxide gas, the former combining with the lime, and forming a carbonate, the latter passing through the juice without any effect.

Another and newer method was invented by Frey and Ielirick, and consists in beginning the carbonization as soon as the juice runs into the pan, the slaked lime being placed in the pan before the juice enters. Three per cent., or sometimes more, of lime is employed by this process, which is, no doubt, most advantageous when working inferior or deteri orated beets. A third process is the one by Perier and Pozzos, who repeat the treatment of beet juice with lime and carbonic acid several

times, aiming at the saving of a greater part of animal charcoal. When large quantities of lime are employed, as in the Frey and Ielirick process, and the Perier and Pozzos, the carbonic acid is obtained from the burning of limestone in limekilns, built expressly for the purpose. All these different methods have their advantages, and all are open to objections. No one method is adopted in any locality, nor is it possible to say which is the best. It generally, and with rare exceptions, depends upon local matters. If lime is not easily obtained, or is impure, it is used more sparingly; if bone-black can be cheaply procured, the employment of carbonic acid is not so essential; the question of fuel is an item in the calculations.

The reason why it is impossible to agree upon any one method or working is the variation in the quality of the beets in different years, as well as in the beets grown the same year in different soils and weather. Factories may be found belonging to one owner, working according to different systems, and so operating for years without solving the problem as to which is the best method under any or all circumstances. Only by the statistical tables can the steady advance and progress be observed.

In comparing the different systems and methods of working in the beet-sugar manufactories of Europe, with a view of finding the best for the United States, it is necessary to examine the circumstances under which they work. It will be observed on page 170, which gives a specified account of a whole season's work, as it has taken place, that the internal revenue is the highest item of expense-even higher than the whole cost of the raw beet. Fuel and wages, each amounts to only one-third of either the internal revenue or the cost of beets, while the interest and discount are figured lower than either fuel or wages. Where land is expensive and difficult to be procured, beets will always command a high price, and the longer the season the higher will be the price of beets. Fuel will always be in proportion to the number of working days, making it immaterial whether the work is extended over the whole season or only over a part. Wages are extremely low already, and they cannot be expected to change much if the working season is extended. The interest and discount would be changed but little if a working season were extended from one hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty days or more, while all the advantages to be gained might be more than counterbalanced by the increased price of beets.

It is readily understood, therefore, why the sugar manufactories lay so little stress on working the whole year. Attempts to do so have been made, and a few establishments are still at work with dry beets; but they do not find many followers. When the process of drying beets and working them the whole year was suggested and put into execution, it was with a view of obtaining the juice in a pure state. By drying the sliced beet and exposing it to a temperature of boiling water, the vegetable albumen contained in the beet coagulates, and becomes insoluble in water; but still the juice obtained is no purer-other changes taking place. The hope of obtaining a better juice thereby has not been realized, and the advantage of working the whole year has been counterbalanced by several disadvantages; one, and not the least, being the worthlessness of the refuse as feed for stock. The dry beet being treated with lime, retains large portions of it, which makes it unfit for use. The fuel consumed makes a heavy item of expense, and is not counterbalanced by the saving of interest on the investment or anything else.

A third objection is the tax. Wherever there is any doubt, the revenue bureau construes in its own favor. Formerly one ton of dried beets was

counted an equivalent for four and three-quarters tons of green or fresh beets, but the proportion is now two to one in calculating the taxes. This proportion may be correct, when beets are perfectly dry, and of inferior quality when fresh; but very rich beets will not require five tons to produce one of dried ones. It is, therefore, more advantageous to work dry beets in bad seasons than in good ones. In a very wet season, and where dry beets have to be transported a great distance, they absorb a great deal of water, which is weighed with, and counted for, beets, and has to pay revenue. But the greatest difficulty is to procure land enough in the vicinity for growing beets, and to produce manure enough to keep the land in its strength.

The principal objections to the system of working the whole year either dried beets continuously, or fresh beets in fall and winter, and dried in spring and summer, may be stated as follows: Scarcity of land; the oppressive system of taxation; high price of land compared with the low price of labor; impossibility of producing manure to keep up the productiveness of the land, if the refuse of the beet cannot be used for cattle-feed, and the low price of capital invested in sugar works.

Not one of all these objections would apply to sugar works, and the system of working dried beets in the United States. Land is neither scarce nor high in price; taxation, if resorted to, would not be oppressive; fuel is very low, while labor is proportionally high; cattle-feed can readily be produced, when farmers see the absolute necessity of a regular system of manure production; and finally the price which capital commands is, at least, double that of any European country.

The process of obtaining the beet juice by "diffusion" is almost the same, whether applied to green beets or to dried. The machinery is the same and can be used for either, and the actual labor to be performed in extracting the juice is considerably less, and in character less objectionable. A factory working by this system in the juice-rendering process thirty-five and three-fifths tons every ten hours, employs eighteen men. A factory rendering the juice by pressing with hydraulic presses (singly) requires forty-two men; working with centrifugal machines, nineteen men; with green maceration, eighteen men; with double hydraulic presses, twenty-five men; while a factory working with centrifugal machines, and pressing afterwards with hydraulic machines, requires forty-one men. The excess of hand labor, required in the press process, cannot be said to be counterbalanced by a juice obtained of one to one and a half degree more density.

The annexed tables give the complete figures taken from the books of the various establishments, and the question is natural, if sugar can be produced at those figures in nearly every country in Europe, why has the largest sugar-consuming nation in the world to rely on its supply from abroad? Why has not beet sugar long ago been produced in the United States ?

The system of farming, if the agricultural labor in the United States can be so designated, has been different from that of any other country, and, with rare exceptions, has never paid; hence, the first requirement for beet-sugar industry, well-cultivated land, cannot be readily obtained. Deep or thorough cultivation is but little known, and money, as an investment in farming, has seldom proved remunerative. But the same causes will ultimately produce the same effects; in order to make our lands as productive as they ought to be, a rotation of grain and root crops will have to be resorted to. As soon as a regular rotation of crops is introduced into the United States, farming, as such, will pay,

and the raw material for beet-sugar factories can be readily produced; until then sugar works will have to do their own farming. When beet sugar was first manufactured in Europe there was no difficulty in procuring the raw material, and all efforts to produce sugar could, therefore, be directed toward the working of beets, not to their production. Comparatively little has been done in the United States to pave the way for sugar production. While in Europe, Henry Clay took great interest in the beet-sugar production of France; and, in speeches made in Congress, he predicted great results from its introduction. More than twenty-five years ago the first effort to introduce this branch of industry into the United States was made, but there exists no authentic record of the results obtained. There is nothing to indicate what variety of beet was raised; the quantity obtained from a given area of land; what percentage of sugar, and what percentage of foreign matter these beets contained; the kind of soil they were raised in, or how the season compared, in respect to temperature and rain-fall, with ar average one. Hence the experiment in Northampton, Massachusetts, costly as it may have been, has not benefited anybody, nor advanced beet production.

Since then numbers of experiments have been made to raise sugar beets by private parties; but no regular systems were adopted, and all being detached, we are as much in the dark to-day as to what beets to raise, and how and in what locality to raise them, as we were twenty-five years ago. In May, 1867, the Agricultural Department at Washington sent nine different varieties of beet seeds to Chatsworth, Illinois, for trial and comparison with the beets produced in countries where they are grown for sugar production. The following are the results obtained, compared with the beets used for sugar making in several establishments, from the books of which we have been kindly furnished with extracts:

These figures, taken from the records kept by factories during the working season, show conclusively that the average quality of those nine varieties of the beet, raised from seeds furnished by the Department, was superior, but it remains to be proved what particular variety is best adapted to culture in the United States, and also which is the best locality for raising beets and producing sugar from them.

The following figures are taken from a report made by Dr. Grouven, chief of the experimental station (Versuchs Station) in Salzmünde, on his researches in tracing the influence of manure, soil, and weather on the quality and quantity of crops. These researches. were conducted with

the greatest care, at an enormous expense, and with a most efficient staff of assistants; many estates volunteered their co-operation. The average of beet juice from twelve estates, each fertilized with different manure, showed the following percentage of sugar in the juice: Estate Tillan, 12.26; Vrerau, 12.80; Honingen, 13.21; Sudenburg, 9.29; Jakowa, 11.70; Grutzka, 12.10; Chakowitz, 13.49; Stifterhof, 12.70; Rhineschanz, 12.60; Junngersdorf, 12.84; Roszla, 11.52; Salzmünde, 14.78; average, 12.44. The nine varieties of the beet, according to the foregoing statement, show an average of 12.40 per cent. of sugar in the juice, while the aver age of twelve experimental estates, where beets were raised with the greatest care, show an average of 12.44 per cent., or very nearly the same, which would seem to settle the question as to whether beets raised in the United States are as rich in sugar as those grown in Europe.

The lands upon which these beets were raised are as different in geological formation and physical condition as lands can be, which proves that it does not require a peculiar soil to produce beets. As a general rule, soil which is well adapted for producing barley is suited to beet culture. The soil on esta te Tillan is light-colored, sandy loam, with very sandy subsofl, almost clear sand; estate Vrerau, sandy loam, containing about twenty per cent. sand, which increases in the subsoil as one goes deeper into it; estate Honingen, tough loam, with a subsoil from two to four feet, the same as the top soil, but further down more mixed with sand; estate Sudenburg, near Magdeburg, mild loamy top soil, with a subsoil more tough, which prevents the moisture from leaving the top soil too freely; estates Jakowa and Grutzka, top soil a black, mellow loam, two feet or more deep, with a subsoil, four feet deep, of yellow loam rich with lime; estate Chakowitz, in Bohemia, heavy clay soil, two and a half feet deep; it is a black soil containing considerable lime, otherwise would make good bricks, subsoil four feet, yellow loam; estate Stifterhof, in Southern Germany, top soil sandy inarl, active and dry, three and a half feet; the subsoil is tough clay, almost impenetrable by water; island of Rhineschauz, a sandy loam top soil, little cohesive and easily worked, with a subsoil, the deeper the sandier; estate Junngersdorf, mild, very productive, loamy top soil, four feet deep, with a subsoil containing marl, with thirty per cent. carbonate of lime; estate Roszla, near the Harz Mountains, red, tolerably heavy loam on top, with a subsoil of heavy loam throughout; estate Salzmünde, a very mild loam, rich in lime down eighteen inches, of a dark humus color, with yellowish white subsoil, at least ten feet deep, containing still more lime, so that it might almost be called marl.

In cultivating the land great attention is paid to subsoiling. Without bringing the subsoil on the top, it is thoroughly stirred to enable it to absorb air and warmth, to carry water off more freely in wet seasons, and to keep more moisture in dry seasons. This system of working the soil so deep is the chief reason why the grain crops in beet-sugar districts are so much larger and less variable than in other places. The beet crops in Europe are considered as certain and safe as any other, but not more so; for the variations, both in quality and quantity, are the same as in grain or other root crops.

The following statements will show the workings of different factories, their productiveness, and the least cost of producing the sugar ready for market:

The practical working of the beet-sugar works, Jerxheim, during the season of 1867-68, is as follows: This establishment is owned by a joint stock company, every shareholder being under obligation to raise or procure a certain quantity of beets annually; hence every stockholder is