Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/650

634 Ten counties produced over 100,000 gallons of sirup each, and two counties produced over $100,000 worth of sirup each, while seventeen counties produced each over $30,000 worth of sirup.

The value of sirup averaged from each acre $42.65, without counting the product of seed. The yield averaged 9·3 tons of cane per acre.

For the first years of a new industry such returns can not be considered other than decidedly promising. That the probabilities are strongly in favor of the ultimate success of sorghum as a source of sugar can hardly be doubted; but that the growth of such a vast industry must be gradual, and may at times be checked by the failures of untrained experimenters, is to be expected. It should be borne in mind, however, that one successful trial, resulting in the production of sugar in paying amounts, is of more value in estimating the possibilities of this new industry than are many failures. The development of any great industry is necessarily slow; especially is this true when manufacturers are not guided by previous experience with closely-related crude materials. The perfection of the manufacturing processes for beet-sugar is an illustration of this point.

It may be interesting, in this connection, to trace briefly the history of beet-sugar in France.

In 1747 Margraff presented a memoir to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, describing the methods whereby he had prepared sugar from beets, and urging the importance of his discovery. Little came of this investigation until half a century had elapsed, when Karl Franz Achard, a former pupil of Margraff, again drew attention to the matter. In 1799 he read a paper before the Institute of France, in which he described his methods and results. He exhibited samples of beet-sugar, and made such an impression that the French Institute appointed a commission, consisting of eminent men of science, to repeat Achard's work. They found about six per cent of sugar in beets, and thought that refined sugar could be produced for about eighteen cents per pound, or for less, if improved manufacturing methods were adopted.

MM. Barruel and Isnard were the first to produce beet-sugar on the commercial scale; they obtained only one and a half per cent of inferior sugar, at a cost of thirty cents per pound.

In 1811 M. Drappiez, of Lille, made beet-sugar at a cost of eighty cents a pound. Even this result, which would seem a disastrous failure to most observers, was sufficiently encouraging to justify the famous decree of Napoleon "that 32,000 hectares (79,040 acres) shall be planted in beets; that six experimental schools to give instruction in the manufacture of beet-sugar shall be established, and that 1,000,000 francs [$200,000] shall be appropriated from the budgets for this purpose, and for the experiments in producing indigo." "The importation of sugar and indigo from England and her colonies was prohibited."