Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/104

82 SUGAR INDUSTRY

The sugar industry is the most important: It brought the Bohemian agriculture in the nineteenth century from the extensive to the mixed farming, and helped to change the agricultural country into an industrial one.

In the 1902–03 sugar-campaign there were in Austria 208 mills with a production of 913.749 tons, in which Bohemia leads with its 136 mills (raw sugar manufacturies and refineries) using 2,355.145 tons of beet, which produced 606.852 tons of refined sugar. The total area of sugar beet under cultivation in Bohemia in the year 1904 was 340.834 acres, against total for Austria of 538.259 acres.

The perfection attained by the Bohemian sugar refineries is shown by the enormous quantity of refined sugar exported.

In the year 1903 the export of refined sugar from Austria-Hungary was valued at 6,958.333, in the year 1904 at ₤ 6,329.166.

The bulk of the sugar exported from Bohemia goes to the United Kingdom, Canada, the Levant via Trieste, British India etc.

BREWING AND MALTING.

The cultivation of hops and barley in Bohemia taking a prominent position in its agriculture, brewing and malting is very prosperous.

Of the total area of 500.040 acres under hop cultivation in Austria in 1904, with a total harvest of 8749 tons, 34.555 acres with a harvest of 6.373 tons represented the production of Bohemia, and increased in 1905 to 37.534 acres with a harvest of 14.419 tons.

The value of hops exported from Austria-Hungary in the year 1903 was ₤ 523.291, in the year 1904 ₤1,126.500. Hops grown in the district of Žatec (Saaz are of the finest quality and have a world-wide reputation.

There are 617 breweries in Bohemia, which, in the year 1903 produced 192,501.078 gallons of beer, the total production of 1341 breweries of Austria being 422,993.120 gallons.