h which smuggled colonial sugar was sold in France, under
the name of sugar from beet root. Five tons of clean roots produce
about 41/2 cwt. of coarse sugar, which give about 160 lbs. of double
refined sugar, and 60 lbs. of inferior lump sugar. The rest is
molasses, from which a good spirit is distilled. The dry residue of
the roots, after expressing the juice, consists chiefly of fibre and
mucilage, and amounts to about one-fourth of the weight of the clean
roots used. It contains all the nutritive part of the root, with the
exception of 41/2 per cent. of sugar, which has been extracted from the
juice, the rest being water.

As the expense of this manufacture greatly exceeded the value of the
sugar produced, according to the price of colonial sugar, it was only
by the artificial encouragement of a monopoly and premiums that it
could be carried on to advantage. The process is one of mere curiosity
as long as sugar from the sugar cane can be obtained cheaper, and the
import duties laid upon it are not so excessive as to amount to a
prohibition; and in this case it is almost impossible to prevent its
clandestine introduction.

Another mode of making sugar from beet root, practised in some parts
of Germany, is as follows, and is said to make better sugar than the
other process:--The roots having been washed, are sliced lengthways,
strung on packthread, and hung up to dry. The object of this is to let
the watery juice evaporate, and the sweet juice, being concentrated,
is taken up by macerating the dry slices in water. It is managed so
that all the juice shall be extracted by a very small quantity of
water, which saves much of the trouble of evaporation. Professor
Lampadius obtained from 110 lbs. of roots 4 lbs. of well-grained white
powder-sugar, and the residuum afforded 7 pints of spirit. Achard says
that about a ton of roots produced 100 lbs. of raw sugar, which gave
55 lbs. of refined sugar, and 15 lbs. of treacle. This result is not
very different from that of Chaptal. 6,000 tons of beet root it is
said will produce 400 tons of sugar and 100 tons of molasses.

Beet root sugar in the raw state contains an essential oil, the taste
and smell of which are disagreeable. Thus the treacle of beet root
cannot be used in a direct way, whereas the treacle of cane sugar is
of an agreeable flavor, for the essential oil which it contains is
aromatic, and has some resemblance in taste to vanilla. But beet root
sugar, when it is