Morning journal and courier., 1881-01-19
Wednesday Morning, Jan. 19. 1881.
BEET SUGAR IN DELAWARE.

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 Those who have believed that beet sugar ! can be as successfully made in this country as in Europe will have their faith strength ened by the working of the experiment in
 progress at Riverside, near Wilmington, Delaware. At that place beet sugar factory has been in operation for two years, and is now said to be within sight of entire success. In 1879. a small quantity of beets was
 worked, but with satisfactory results so far as mechanical success went It was fully
 proved, if there had been any doubt on the point, that the beets grow in the vicinity of the factory were suitable for the purpose,
 and, with careful culture, would contain sufficient saccharine matter for profit to the farmer and the manufacturer. Iast year all the plans were on much larger scale, and, except for two drawbacks, the season. oper- ations would have been without loss. The first and chief difficulty was the extreme drought which made root crops of all kinds almost failure. Also insects attacked the young beets when they came up, and hun
 dreds of acres, the crops of which the own CTS had contracted to sell to the Beet-Sugar Company, were given up before the season was over and in some cases plowed down for other crops Instead, therefore, of an aver age crop of twelve or fifteen tons an acre, as
 should be got on fair soil with intelligent culture, the company received only about ], 1000 tons of beets from 497 acres. Some of
 these, however, were rich in sugar. One
 farmer has raised beets with 10, Il and 12
 per cent. of saccharine matter right along,
 and averaged over ten tons to. the acre, last
 season, in spite of drought. He regards the
 crop now as one of his best, and will put in
 this year either 50 or 100 acres, expecting,
 with fair weather, to get 15 tons per acre.
 The difficulty, it is said, on the side of the
 farmers is not so much as had been expect
 ed, in getting good quality of beets as in
 raising enough in quantity, and this is an ob-
 stacle more easy to overcome than the other.
 The second drawback which the company
 encountered was in not being able to begin
 work as early as had been intended. The
 factory ran only about one month, instead of
 three as was intended. The beets had dete-
 riorated by drying after being dug up. Yet
 about 100, 900 pounds of fine quality of
 light brown sugar were made, and also 50
 barrels of "A' white sugar, (which were
 sold in Wilmington for retailing by grocers )
 (, BOO gallons of inferior molasses remained,
 which was sold to the shoe-blacking makers
 and the beet refuse found 8 prompt sale at
 the factory door at $1 ton. It is worth,
 according to experience about double that to
 dairymen and other stock feeders. These
 results were all satisfactory, except in the
 particulars stated. The company means to
 push things this season. It wants to work
 up 15 ,000 tons of beets, and will contract
 with farmers for cultivating something like
 5000 or 2,5OO acres of beets. Any good
 wheat land, it's officers say, will raise
 good beets, and as Delaware produces splen- did wheat in a large part of her area, there can be no doubt that the beet, crop will pres
 ently grow to be a very important one. In Maine, where there is beet sugar factory, the great trouble is to get enough beets of good sugar quality, but that is not regarded as difficulty in Delaware. Beets that will give anywhere above per cent. of sugar are regarded as suitable for the purpose.
 The machinery in use at the factory at Riv- erside is almost wholly of American manu- facture and has worked we'll. Notwith- standing the low wages of Europe, the officers of the company are convinced that, with the several labor-saving appliances which they use, they can defy any German factory to compete with them in cheapness of opera tions, as well as in mechanical results, and | they look forward confidently to the future