So early as 1747, a chemist of Berlin, named Margraf, discovered that beet root contained a certain quantity of sugar, but it was not until 1796 that the discovery was properly brought under the attention of the scientific in Europe by Achard, who was also a chemist and resident of Berlin, and who published a circumstantial account of the progress by which he extracted from 3 to 4 per cent. of sugar from beet root.

Several attempts have been made, from time to time, to manufacture beet root sugar in England, but never, hitherto, on a large and systematic scale.  Some years ago a company was established for the purpose, but they did not proceed in their operations.

A refinery of sugar from the beet root was erected at Thames Bank, Chelsea, in the early part of 1837.  During the summer of 1839 a great many acres of land were put into cultivation with the root, at Wandsworth and other places in the vicinity of the metropolis.  The machinery used in the manufacture was principally on the plan of the vacuum pans, and a fine refined sugar was produced from the juice by the first process of evaporation, after it had undergone discolorization.  Another part of the premises was appropriated to the manufacture of coarse brown paper from the refuse, for which it is extensively used in France.

A refinery was also established about this period at Belfast, in the vicinity of which town upwards of 200 acres of land were put into cultivation with beet root for the manufacture of sugar.

The experience of France ought to be a sufficient guarantee that the manufacture of beet root sugar is not a speculative but a great staple trade, in which the supply can be regulated by the demand, with a precision scarcely attainable in any other ease, and when, in addition, this demand tends rather to increase than to diminish.  That the trade is profitable there can also be no doubt from the large capital embarked in it on the Continent—­a capital which is steadily increasing even in France, where protection has been gradually withdrawn, and where, since 1848, it has competed upon equal terms with colonial sugars.

The produce of France in 1851 was nearly 60,000 tons.  The beet root sugar made in the Zollverein in 1851 was about 45,000 tons.  Probably half as much more as is made in France and the Zollverein, is made in all the other parts of the Continent.  In Belgium, the quantity made is said to be 7,000 tons; in Russia, 35,000; making a total of beet root sugar now manufactured in Europe of at least 150,000 and probably more, or nearly one-sixth part of the present consumption of Europe, America, and our various colonies.  In 1847 this was estimated at upwards of 1,000,000 tons; and, as the production has increased considerably since that period, it is now not less than 1,100,000 tons.  The soil of the Continent, it is said, will give 16 tons to the acre, and that of Ireland, 26 tons to the acre.  The former yields from 6 to