eriment. That the Sugar Beet grows
luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether
there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the
Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is
attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is
profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France,
Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the
exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to
be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained,
and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar.
They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent.
after paying an excise of L10 per tun to the Government, working their
mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they
cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist
to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured
in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000
tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied
thereon--that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns
per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany--that each
acre of Beets will yield 4 1/2 tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s.
6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the
cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over L5 per acre--that there
is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the
Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the
existence of foreign substances in one or both--that Irish roots
generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably _more_ Sugar
than those grown on the Continent--and that Beet Sugar may be made in
Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which
the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As
the soil and climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor
decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the
Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two
thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five
thousand tuns--every pound of it imported--I can perceive no reasonable
basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will
speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give e