BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-03-29
Beet Sugar Making
Remarkable Growth Of The
Industry In The U. S.
Fifty Factories Bui1t or Building,
Against Ten Five Years Ago :
New York State Very Backward
-Huge Plants in the West Pay
Best-Businsss Likely to Expand
Largely in the Future.

The manufacture of sugar from beets has
now been practioed for slightly over one
huadred years. Previous to the eleventh
century sugar from cane and a species OF
palm had been used in some PORTIONS of the
world for several thousand years, although
not introduced into England until the reign
of Queen Elizabeth.
Even after it was found possible to obtain
sugar from beets, many years elapsed before
any appreciable amount was produced and
as late as 1910 the yearly production Of Eu-
rope only amounted to forty cr fifty thousand
tons. At that time the WORKS consumption
of cane sugar was slightly over 5000 600
tons.
During the last half of the nineteenth
century, however, the production OF beet
sugar increased much more rapidly than
cane. until at the close the two crops stood
about even, at 100000 tons. Some
9. 900, 900 tons Indian sugar not generally
considered in commercial statistics are In
cluded in the States.
| This enormous increase in teet is mainly
due to improved methods OF manufacture
aud to q much purer raw material. In the
| factory science, especially chemistry, has
aided greatly, while csrsful breeding aud
cuitivations has given best containing
twise the sugar and halfth foreign salts of
| the early type. Oonsf quen!ly while 3 per
cent. of the weight of Ehe beet was obtained
as raw sugar IA 1910, II per cent. ra,o su-
gar in Germany aud 10 par cent. refiaed In
| America are now realized.
| OF the sugar produce in the world, last
year Q901) the United States consumed
1 a o OF
imported beet, and 124 S59 tons domestic
beet. The rest was cane; louisiana, Porto
Rico and Hawaii together furnished 667,-
400 tons, Cuba 559, 800 tons and Java about
300, ,97S tons, other districts providing the
rest in small portions.
This sugar, which is almost all raw that
is, crystallized sugar mixed with moasses
is imported most extensively by the Amer
can Sugar Refining Company, which has
made slight alterations in some of its houses
especially for refining it. Here it is mixed
with care sugar thoroughly purified, and
sent on the market under one of the colDpa-
ny's wellknown brands. Il is in no wise q
different process. Even if it were pure bee',
is would be impossible to distinguish it froa
cane when treated in this way.
The domestic beet sugar manufacturers
have however, adopted method somewhat
more economical than the double handling
of the cane grower and the refner, by
which the white product is made direct from
the raw material. If the sugar be placed
side by side with the other it will be s'en
to be slightly darker in color. Both will,
however, be over SO per cent purity, about
one-tenth of per cent. being impurities,
and the rest water, and for sll practical
purposes are identical.
The beet sugar industry has now been
successfully established in the States for
twenty-five years only during the last ten,
hoacever, has it been sufficiently extensive
to demand attention.
During the first decade only one factory
was operated, namely, that at Alvarado,
CAL. with daily capacity in 1888 of loo
tons of beets. since increased to 800 tons.
| Between 1888 and 1894 FIVE more factories
were established-swo in California, two
in Nebraska and one in Utah. Under the
Mckinley and Wilson tariff the price OF
sugar fell considerably. This greatly checked
the growth of the industry, and few new
factories were constructed until the passage
of the Dingley tariff.
In 1898 seven new factories were bullt-l
one in Michigan, thai Of the Michigan Sugar