price; nor in France, except in winter-time,
and which therefore is unseen by the majority
of tourists. But, to avoid retracing our steps,
we will finish our investigation of the beetroot
ground, before proceeding further.

A group of men, women, and boys are
removing the earth at the end of that ridge,
and are carting away the roots to the Factory.
You observe, they are neither the same kind
as the mangel-wurzel grown in England to
such enormous weights for cattle-feeding, nor
as the garden beet which we eat in our winter
salads. Sugar might be made from mangelwurzel,
as it might from turnips, but the
juice is comparatively poor; and the extra
evaporation and cooking required would
increase the expense ruinously. These are
much smaller, and sweeter; cut a slice off,
and chew it, and you will taste the difference.
The roots are mostly of a light pink, with a
few yellow ones intermixed. But the variety
which enjoys the highest repute in France
for its yield of sugar, is the white Silesian
beet. High-coloured roots, like the garden
beet, give extra trouble, especially towards the
close of the season, to make their sugar white.

In order to be independent of other farmers
for his supply, M. Legrave grows all his own
beet. It is desirable, too, to have some
control even over the early growth of the
root, because the manner in which that
is conducted has considerable influence on
the success of the manufacture. The manuring
of the land ought not immediately to precede
the sowing; for it is found that, although
the land ought to be in good heart to grow
productive sugar-beet, the manure must be
well rotted and incorporated with it some
time previously. Experience has also proved
that beet grown on laud which has been
folded, or too highly manured, gives unusual
trouble to extract the sugar from it. In a
factory in the environs of Douai, where they
had used some beet grown on a spot on which
a quantity of old plaster had been spread,
the result was that more nitrate of potash
than sugar was forthcoming. Some sugar-
makers have grown their beet on the same
land for five years in succession, without any
sensible inconvenience; but still it is better
to alternate the crop with barley or spring
wheat, to avoid the evils arising from fresh
manure. You now begin to understand what
a delicate piece of business it is from begin-
ning to end. One single hitch or flaw in the
process —and a great many are possible—
spoils the whole.

The storing of the roots by earthing them
up is the mode most usually employed; and,
although we do not see any little straw chimneys
in the ridge, to renew the air, and prevent
the mass from heating, they nevertheless
would be a wise precaution, and would be
absolutely necessary if the heaps were large
as well as long, or if the roots were in the
least bruised. The earthing-up plan answers
well; yet, if the same spot of ground is used
to store beet on two or three years successively,
vexatious consequences are apt to
follow. The very earth remains impregnated
with the seeds of noxious fermentation.

Another method of preserving the roots,
which is more costly at the outset, but which
is so successful as to be adopted by many large
establishments, is to store them in covered
buildings. This plan completely saves them
from the injuries of frost, but does not exempt
them from those of fermentation; great care
is, therefore, taken to maintain currents of air
throughout the accumulation of vegetable
matter. But, on either plan, the roots do suffer
change, and decrease in utility, to a certain
extent, in spi^e of every precaution. The
amount of sugar obtained becomes less in
quantity and inferior in quality as the season
advances. The temperature of the season
itself has something to do with it, a mild
winter being much less favourable than a
hard one. When the crown begins to shoot
its leaves, the j uices of the root are much less
valuable. This winter of 1852-3 has altered
the quality of the beet by at least a month.
That is, the juice obtained in January
has lost the same proportion of sweetness
as it would in the February of an ordinary
year. One process alone can prevent
this serious inconvenience; and that is, to
dry the roots immediately they are taken out
of the ground. The French hope to be able
to dry beet-root on the spot where it is grown,
and to deliver it like so much wheat, to be
worked at any time of the year, at a not
utterly ruinous price. But the problem yet
remains to be solved.

The chesnut mare who dragged us hither
is unharnessed from her cabriolet, and is regaling
herself with a quartern of oats and a
five pound bunch or half-bottle of hay — whence
doubtless our rustic expression of " looking for
a needle in a bottle of hay." While she is
enjoying herself in her stable at Coquille, we
will go and have a peep at M. Legrave's
Sugar-house.

We pass through gates inscribed with a
prohibition to enter -- a defense which barks
much worse than it bites -- into a sort of
square farm-yard. Crossing that, an open
door admits us into the factory itself. Looking
first to the right, and then to the left, we
perceive that the two wings are appropriated
to different processes, comprising the two
great parts of the "whole operation, namely,
the extraction of the juice from the roots, and
the treatment of the juice after its extraction.
In front of us is the passage leading to the
fifteen-horse steam-engine, which occupies a
central position amidst the whole. All the
heating, and boiling, and forcing, and evaporation
is effected by steam, and not by
fire. There is the least possible of fetching
and carrying in the establishment. The
steam-engine does all the hardest of the
labour, and only requires to be fed and
tended. And the juice, from the moment it