Sugar from Beets [pp. 157-160]

1870.] LITERA TURL SUIEN~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~E~~~ AND ART 159~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thousand skilled laborers would find work at the sugar-houses in the
various processes of washing, rasping, and pressing the plants, defe cating, filtering, and boiling the juice, cleaning the implements,
and running the steam-engines, boilers, and other machinery used
in the conversion of beets into raw sugar. This numerous body
of work-people, forming an army as large as that with which Grant
took Richmond, would be occupied only one-half of the year, and
could engage in other avocations during the remaining six months.
Let us endeavor to realize the magnitude of the question by trying to
form a conception of the quantity of saccharine matter annually swallowed by this nation. Stated in figures, it is four hundred thousand tons.
Now, this may not seem very much to a people that habitually speaks of
millions as the rest of the world does of simple units, and that talks
of abstractions in a magniloquent vein; yet it is by no means easy to
grasp the idea of the concrete thing for which those numbers stand.
Put the sugar into hogsheads, holding each a ton, and place them on
their heads, side by side, touching one another: they would reach
from New York to Philadelphia. Formed into an obelisk of white,
glittering, refined lump, with a base the size of Trinity Church, it
would rise to the height of two thousand feet-five times that of St.
Peter's at Rome. It would make a good-sized Egyptian pyramid, with
enough left for half a dozen sphinxes. It would cover the whole surface of Madison Square with a solid mass reaching above the tops of
the houses that surround it, its bulk exceeding that of ten FifthAvenue Hotels. The molasses would fill a canal, as long and wide as
Broadway is from Grace Church to Bowling Green, to the depth of five
feet. And nearly every particle of this huge total comes from alien
lands, when it could be produced here of as good quality-and the
profit would remain in our pockets, instead of enriching strangers;
our fields would be fertilized by the culture of the sugar-plant, and
not impoverished, as they now are, by the continual growing of cereal
crops, which exhaust the soil of its most valuable constituents, and
are sent to European marts to pay for the substances that we now
import, but ought to raise at home. The times are propitious to the
inauguration and foundation of this new industry. The rise in the
value of paper money, which it is to be hoped will prove lasting, together with the huge immigration of laborers, many of whom are
German peasants, accustomed to this special branch of farming, lowers
the rate of wages, and permits the farmers to hire a greater number
of hands than they could afford to do while high prices prevailed. The
heavy duties levied on sugar and molasses have the effect of a bounty
in favor of beet-growers, and are likely to be kept up for some years.
Still, this manufacture needs no protection at all, and can even afford
to pay a large tax, while giving a profit to the owners of capital embarked in it.
As yet, but little has been done in the way of actual trial of the
merits of beet-culture by our citizens. The Gennert brothers planted
several hundred acres with beets, and built a sugar-house, on the line
of the Illinois Central Railway. Their works at Chatsworth were not
finished, for want of money enough to carry them through the first
year's operations. They said they began on too big a scale for their
means. Their fine crops of beets, on new soil, satisfied them that success was certain, if they had capital to go on with.
Since then, a company has been formed in Wisconsin, but is said
to be about to remove its centre of operations to California, where
the beet-root is thought to flourish better than even in the rich soil
of the Northwest.
But enough has been done in the way of raising root-crops, both
mangels and turnips, for cattle-feed, to settle the question so far as
the quality and yield of the plant are concerned. The average excellence in both respects is quite equal to that of the beets grown in Europe. Long experience there has shown that they flourish in all
climates and soils, from the warm regions of Provence and Languedoc, in the extreme south of France, to the broad steppes of Russia
and the icy confines of the Arctic Circle. The same isothermal limits
in America comprise a wide belt of the continent, extending from Virginia through Kentucky to the Mississippi; and, beyond the Father
of Waters, the valleys of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, the foot-hills
of thc Sierras, and the luxuriant fields of the Pacific States, form its
southern bounderies. All north of these, to the frigid zone, including
Montana, Dakota, the Red-River country, the Northwestern States,
New York, Pennsylvania, and New England, with a large portion of
Canada, is an immense tract of the earth's surface, throughout the
whole extent of which most of the arable land suitable for cereals
will bear crops of beets, from ten to sixty tons per acre. And, the
colder the clime in which they are cultivated, the richer is the juice in
saccharine matter.
It is unnecessary to attempt giving any extended account of the
beet-root plant, or to describeethe proper modes of raising it, and the
processes of the factory; but a few remarks may not be amiss. The
beet is a native of the temperate zone; it is believed that it was imported into Europe from Asia Minor about the fourteenth century.
It belongs to the botanical family of the COlenopodium and the genus
Beta. The two kinds most commonly cultivated in gardens, and eaten
at the table, are the red (Beta vulgaris) and the white (Beta cicla).
There are several species of the sugar-beet; among them the Beta aeba,
B. major, B. rornana, and B. sylvestris. It is known in Germany as
the Mangelwurzel, or scarcity-root-fiom Afaezgel, want, scarcity, and
Wurzel, root-supposed to be so called from being used in place of
bread in times of famine; but this is doubtless a corruption from
Mangold, beet, ll~angoldwurzel, beet-root. In botany it is termed the
B. altissima, or B. 1sybrida, being considered a variety of the common
beet. Those principally used in the sugar-factories are the disette, or
mangold, of which the flesh and skin are white; the bulb is cylindrical, and protrudes very much from the ground, sometimes as much
as fifteen inches, while only four or five are covered with soil; but by
proper earthing up, and loosening the subsoil with the plough, this
can be prevented, and the whole root made available. The objection
to letting it grow out of the ground is, that various salts, injurious in
their action on the sugar while boiling, collect in that part of the
plant exposed to the air, and it has to be cut off before rasping and
pressing. This is the largest variety, single bulbs weighing as high
as twenty-five and thirty pounds. Then there is the white Silesian,
which is now generally thought to be the best sort in use; it is pearshaped, with white flesh and skin; weighs about five pounds; the
juice is pure, and abounds in sugar; it is a favorite with the manufacturer on account of being free from salts; is hard, and resists
putrefaction, so that it can be kept until late in the spring without
loss. There are three sub-varieties, distinguished by the color of a
ring presented by a cross-section of the crown of the beet, close to
the bull). They are called the collet vert, collet rose, and collet jaune,
being respectively of those colors. Then there is the yellow globemangold, or C}astelnaudary beet; it is pear-shaped, approaching globular; the skin and flesh are yellow; it is soft and juicy, and grows to
a much larger size than the Silesian. The white globe is a sub-variety
of this. All these, and some other kinds, are valuable; but the Silesian is perhaps the best of any, on account of its richness, purity, and
property of keeping well.
The beet is half-hardy and biennial; seed is procured from plants
that are dug in the fall of the first year, and kept in pits until the
next spring, when they are set out in land prepared for the purpose,
and the seed is formed during the second season.
Of the cultivation, it is enough to say that the deeper the tillage,
and the more nearly the fields are made to resemble a garden-bed, the
better. They must be well manured with human and animal ordures,
guano, phosphates, charcoal, bones, compost, and such other substances as may be convenient, avoiding those which contain salts in
excess, if possible, to procure manures free from them. ANhile growing, they must be thoroughly cultivated and weeded. Thle rows in
which they are planted may be from sixteen inches to three feet apart,
and the plants should stand at intervals of twelve inches in the rowes.
When harvested, the tops are cut off with a sharp tool, like a spade
or large chisel; and they are then piled up and covered over i large
heaps, or stored in pits, until wanted for use. This branch of the
business is understood by all intelligent farmers who are in the habit
of raising root-crops for feeding to cattle and sheep, and may be found
fully discusseJ;T agricultural reports.
The operations of the sugar-house, and the machinery used for
converting the juice into sugar, do not differ materially from the
arrangements commonly seen on West-India sugar-plantations, except that, in place of the familiar rollers that crush the long joints
of the cane, a circular instrument, something like a number of circular saws placed close together, rasps the beets into fine fragments after
they have been washed. This washing is done by forcing the beets to
revolve in a long, barrel-like machine, partially immersed in a stream
of water; or by making them ascend an Archimedes screw, while
water runs down against them. This finely-divided stuff looks like
grated horseradish, and is next put into bags and squeezed dry un