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These figures show only the expenses belonging to cutting and transporting the cane, and manufacturing the produce; in addition, there is the cost of packages, small stores, &c. The lowest calculation of coal required is about 9 cwt. of coal to 18 cwt. of sugar; the supposed 50 hhds. of sugar would therefore consume about 450 cwt. of coal. Taking all these items into consideration, the cost of cutting and transporting canes, and making them into sugar and rum, would be for the supposed 50 hhds. sugar and 15 puncheons rum:

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This is about the weekly expenditure on the manufacturing, not including the transportation of stores, coal, or sugar. The cost of transport is very various for different

estates; some can give a berth alongside the buildings to a vessel that will carry their produce direct to the market; others have to convey to the railway, a distance of perhaps two miles, pay railway fees, lighter the produce to a store, and perhaps have again to lighter it alongside the vessel in the stream. It is well worth while to pay rather high for rapid transportation of sugar. Sugar very quickly loses its bloom, and the sooner it is in the market the better. One lot may realise 6d. per cwt. more than another, solely because it is a month newer.

BEET SUGAR.

CHAPTER VIII.

CULTIVATION OF THE PLANT.

The Plant.-The beetroot (Beta vulgaris) is a hardy biennial plant, indigenous to the south of Europe, long under cultivation in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia, Austria, Russia, and England, and more recently established in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. A great many varieties are known to cultivators, but the most. important to the sugar-maker is the white Silesian, sometimes regarded as a distinct species (B. alba), and exhibiting several forms. Grown to perfection, the Silesian beet is pearshaped, shows very little above ground, and penetrates about 12 inches into the soil, throwing out numerous rootlets. It has a white flesh, the two chief varieties being distinguished by one having a rose-coloured skin and purple-ribbed leaves, the other a white skin and green leaves. Both are frequently seen growing together in the same field, and do not exhibit any marked difference in their respective sugar-yielding qualities.

The selection of seed deserves the greatest attention on the part of the beetroot grower. Experience has shown that roots rich in sugar transmit their richness to the next generation, whilst seed from light ill-shaped roots, poor in sugar, produce similar inferior roots. In France, great trouble has been taken by Vilmorin, the celebrated seedsman, of Paris, in the selection.

and crossing of beet, and Vilmorin's improved beet, which by some is regarded as a special variety of the Silesian, is justly esteemed in France and Belgium for its sugar-yielding capabilities.

Great attention is also paid in the north of Germany, more particularly in the neighbourhood of Magdeburg, in Prussia, to the growing of superior beetroot seed. Owing to the fact that, in Prussia, the duty is levied on the roots, and not on the manufactured sugar, as in France, special care has been taken in Prussia to propagate roots rich in sugar, and speaking generally, beets grown in Germany yield 3 to 4 per cent. more sugar on an average than those raised in France.

Good sugar beets possess the following broad characteristics:

1. They have a regular pear-shaped form, and smooth skin. Long, tapering, carrot-like roots are considered inferior to pear-shaped Silesian beets.

2. They do not throw out forks, or fingers and toes.

3. They have white and firm flesh, delicate and uniform structure, and clean sugary flavour. Thick-skinned roots are frequently spongy, and always more watery than beets distinguished by a uniform firm and close texture.

4. They weigh, on an average, 1 to 2 lb. apiece. Neither very large nor very small roots are profitable to the sugar manufacturer. As a rule, beets weighing more than 3 lb. are watery, and poor in sugar; and very small roots, weighing less than lb., are either unripe or too woody, and in either case yield comparatively little sugar. As the soil and season have a great influence upon the composition of the crop, it is quite possible in a favourable season, and with proper cultivation, to produce beets weighing over 4 lb., which, nevertheless, yield a good percentage of sugar. Speaking generally, good beetroots in average seasons seldom exceed 2 lb. in weight.

5. Good sugar-beets show no tendency to become necky,

and their tops are always smaller than those of inferior beets. Corenwinder has shown that beets with large leaves are generally richer than those with small leaves, and he prefers the former for seed.

6. Good beetroots are considerably denser than water, and rapidly sink to the bottom of a vessel filled with water. The specific gravity of the roots affords a pretty good test of their quality, for the greater their specific gravity the richer in sugar they will be found, as a rule. A still better test than the gravity of the root is the specific weight of the expressed juice. The juice of good roots has usually a density varying between 106 and 107. When very rich in sugar, the gravity of the juice rises above 1'07, even reaching 1078 in Englishgrown roots, indicating over 14 per cent. of crystallizable sugar. Juice poor in sugar always has a density below 1060. Estimating the sugar-value of juice by its density has already been alluded to at length under Cane Sugar (see pp. 90-1).

7. In a well cultivated soil, the roots grow entirely in the ground, and throw up leaves of moderate size. This tendency to bury itself in the soil is characteristic of good sugar-beet. But it may be greatly frustrated in thin stony soil, and in stiff clay, resting on an impervious subsoil.

At the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Vilmorin showed a fine collection of beets, with the proportions of sugar they were respectively capable of yielding. They form five classes :

The white sugar beet of Silesia (Fig. 103), the mother-plant of all the white varieties now grown, which, by acclimatization or degeneration, has developed an innumerable crowd of varieties, more or less suited for sugar-making; such are the "Magdeburg," "Imperial" (Fig. 104), "Electoral," &c. The "acclimatized" (in France) white Silesian, is highly recommended, analyzing 12 to 14 per cent. of sugar, and returning 45,000 and even 50,000 kilogrammes of roots, or 6500 kilogrammes of sugar, per hectare (say 39,600 to 44,000 lb. of roots, or 5720 lb. of sugar, per acre).

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