BEET

BEET or BETA, a well-known genus of plants. The common beet, Beta vulgaris, a variety of the red beet, has long been cultivated as a food for cattle, and is also used for the table as a pickle. It was introduced for this purpose in the latter part of the last century from Germany, where it is known by the name of mangel-wurzel. See AGRICULTURE. The variety termed white beet is smaller than the former, and has chiefly been cultivated on a large scale for the formation of sugar from its root. The chemical elements of beet-root sugar are expressed atomically thus:—$C\_\{12\}H\_\{22\}O\_\{11\}\; +\; 2\backslash text\{HO\}$, or twelve atoms of carbon, nine of hydrogen, nine of oxygen, and two of water. The largest extract of pure sugar from beet-root in Belgium was formerly three per cent., but is now six per cent., and is capable of further increase by improvement in the process of manufacture. The cultivation of beet-root was especially fostered in France by Napoleon, whose policy it was to encourage everything that tended to render the Continent independent of Britain, then in possession of the chief sugar colonies. It is only within a comparatively recent period, however, that the manufacture of beet-root sugar in Europe has assumed any degree of importance, the total quantity produced in 1829 not exceeding 7000 tons, while in 1851 it was estimated at not less than 180,000 tons. We subjoin a few statistics relative to the increasing importance of this manufacture from The Economist (Nos. 431 and 432, Nov. 29th, and Dec. 26th 1851). The quantity of beet-root sugar annually produced in France is 60,000 tons, or fully one-half of the entire consumption. Though now subject to a higher duty than colonial cane sugar, it is considered probable that very shortly it will exclude foreign sugar from the French market altogether. The production of beet-root sugar in Belgium also is rapidly on the increase, the quantity produced in 1850 being 7000 tons, or half the entire consumption of that kingdom. This had increased in 1851 to 10,000 tons, while of foreign cane sugar only 4000 tons were imported. In Germany it has made similar progress. In 1848 the quantity produced was 26,000 tons, which had risen in 1851 to 43,000, with a corresponding decrease in the imports of foreign sugar. Of 85,000 tons of sugar estimated to have been consumed in Russia, 35,000 tons were beet-root sugar. In Austria also the production of this article increased from 8000 tons in 1848, to 15,000 tons in 1851, while the consumption of cane sugar had sunk from 32,000 to 25,000 tons. This subject, in all its bearings, will be found fully discussed under the head SUGAR.