The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1877.

Waikato Times, Issue 837, 30 October 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1877.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Ot' ; whatever state or persuasion, religious o | political

Here shall the Press the People's right I maintain,' * . Una\yed by influence and unbribed by gain

The question of sugar-beet cultivation, j anil 'its possible use for sugar manufacturing purposes, is a question we should like to see taken up and that) too, while there is time in theptesent season for "individuals to initiate : a\ system of experiments, whicli would appear to be desirable ..before entering more largely into the undertaking. The letter of Mr lished; gpps.tp. show that all soils* 'are ii'6 ( t suited for the production of j|ug|?-beet.; •: so me, eminently so. It iyouldi be./therefpfe desirable that practical tests should be made in the ;way he indicates, in different parts/, of. the. district, that the products of the beets may be analysed | and the "value of the soil for sugar production fairly- tested. With us 6 be season is* somewhat later than at Aucklarid, and there 'is yet time for the planting of an acre here or there where the farmer has land suitable and well prepared for the purpose. Should ;the sugar-beet so grown prove unfit for manufacturing purposes, no loss will betustained, as the crop of sugar-beets* willybe. as valuable, if not more so, for stock-feediiig purpose tlianif the same gro.u ,d had been sown with mangold wurizel. In the question of s'jigarbeet exbited some little interest at .|he. pt the present ji

- ~. , —a —— O ""'.' %'T^~<. returns sent in, it appeals that the* roots manufactured :into. sugar and spirit gave on an average* 7-09 per cent, t only quantity much spo small %. render the manufacbure of sugar from beetroot a profitable, industry in Victoria. The avefage quantity contained in beetroots used for the of sugar on the Continent is 10-13 per cent." Now, the per-centage of sugar seems to depend very much, if nob entirely, on the weight of the root, for i'u the Cyclopaedia of Agriculture for 1875, in an article by Dr Augustus Voelcker, member of the Chemical Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society, whose works are largely quoted by all writers on this subject, we find as tlfe result of experiment on .various sized roots, that the per-centage of sugar was in exactly converse proportion to the size of the root. He says : " On an average the proportion of sugar, contained in the various kinds of beet which.are cultivated for sugarmaking can be assumed at about 10 per cent. In the manufacture of beet-root sugar, however, a , large quantify is changed into unchrystal.izable sugar, or glucose, which constitutes the principal part of ; .molasses or brown ;'r. In France the average per-c A,- t of sugar which is actually obt&i i in beetroot sugar manufactories amounts to about 5 per cent. A production of 6 per cent, is considered a satisr factory result, and 7 per cent, is seldom obtained, even in favourable seasons, It is, ho wever, by no means impossible toincrease the per-centage at present obtained in the manufac tories by a still more improved process of preparation. •. . .' . According to some experiments of Herman, roots of sugar-beet weigh-, ing 3K> each contained 6-7 per cent, of sugar y weighing 25) each, 8-10 per cent. ; weighing sß> each, 11-12 per cent. \ and weighing £lb each, as much as 13 per cent, of sugar." Thus it will be seen that it is much in the power of the grower, provided there be no special disability of soil or climate to increase the Jsugar - producing properties of the crop, for as we pointed out in a previous article the size of the root may be regulated by the distance at which the plants are left to' remain in the field. Fifteeninctiesfrom row to row and eight inches in the row we instanced as recomended by the Californian growers.. But these aimed at a plant, averaging, from 21b. to 31b. If the small sized plants alluded to in the above experiment are to be grown, then even this* distance apart must be lessened if quantity as well as quality is to be sought for. If we are to try the capabilities of the district for producing sugar, beets it is desirable that the circumstances under which they can be most favourably grown should be known, and the references ' to Voelcker and Herman are in that case of value and interest. It has been said that the. production of sugar from beet in Calafqrnia has proved a falure,. but we have not far to go to show that this is not so. Early in 1871, the first sugar factory commenced operations (to which . we have previously alluded), and we find Colonel Stewart, in a lecture delivered at Kingstone, in Jamaica, ' in 1875, thus alluding to the beet sugar industry of California—," By the press of California, we see that beet sugar is becoming one qf-jihe chief industries of that wonderful State. From the San FranGisoo papers of July 7th, I find the followr ing report :r—The beet grows here very abundantly, arid yields very heavily to the acre, the average yield of sugar being about 8 per cent. One factory this season has cultivated 1,500 acres, which is estimated to yield over 3,000,000 pounds, of sacharine matter, Judging frorn the crop of the previous year (which was from 800 acres of beets, pro-, ducing 983,125 lbs. of sugar and 146;000 gallons of molasses) it would give in-round nnmbers about 2,000,000 lbs of sugar, and a similar proportion of molasses." This at least is a refutation of the statements, of who would have us believe that sugar from heet has failed as. an industry in California, and *must therefore fail in NewZealand. That it is. an enterprise wkvfo requires care and caution in entering upon will be generally admitted, but we are justified in looking forward to the day whien there will be, not one manufactory for the North Island and one for the South, but many such for. both, arid one at least in I this particular district. The first I step is to procure the best possible seed, and learn the cultivation of the plant as regards results, using the bulk of it for stock purposes, There are processes as in sorghum sugar, making, whereby tests on* a small scale can be made, and by and bye we shall, perhaps, have the facilities afforded by machinery erected in other parts of the country. It will be time then to expend means in the more extended work of manufacturing, but in the growth of the beet itself, to arrive at the best kinds and the most profitable form of production the sooner we take the first step the better.. It is one, as we have said that will entail no loss of ground, labour, or seed uppn the farmer, and such being the case even this year we may hope to see a sufficiency of the raw material produced to afford, as Mr Cairns says, " A number of actual practical tests of the capabilities of different 3oils to grow a good quality pf root,* )

heaviest percentage of sugar, the district was more suitable for the establishment of a factory than the vicinity of Auckland. .