HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUGAR-BEET INDUSTRY IN
THE UNITED STATES? -
EARLY HISTORY OF SUGAR INDUSTRY
Sugar did not become an important item of diet until modern
times. Formerly it was used only as a medicine and was sold in small
quantities by apothecaries. In ancient times honey was the principal
sweet food, and early Greek and Roman writers mention sugar as a
rare product and refer to it as the ‘honey which comes from bam-
boos.” Sugar cane became an important commercial source of sugar
several centuries before the discovery of sugar in beets. Early in the
sixteenth century sugar cane was introduced into the West Indies
and into Central and South America from Mediterranean countries.
The first cane-sugar mill was erected in Cuba in 1547. With
increased production in. the American colonies, sugar came into
more general use in Europe. The price in London, which had been
as high as $275 per hundred pounds as late as 1482, had by the close
of the fifteenth century fallen to $53. For many years it remained
a luxury, and not until after the middle of the seventeenth century
did it really become a part of the diet of European peoples.
In 1747 sugar was for the first time obtained from beets by Andrew
Marggraf, a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Under the
encouragement of Frederick the Great, of Prussia, and Frederick
William III, the first commercial extraction of sugar from beets was
developed by Carl Franz Achard. In 1799-1801, the first beet-sugar
factory in the world was built near Steinan in Silesia, Germany. The
development of factory methods from laboratory practice was a slow
and tedious process and even after the erection of the first factory the
difficulty of purifying sugar and the low sugar content of the beets
were factors that discouraged the enterprise.
However, the growth of the industry in Europe was greatly stimu-
lated by the blockades established during the Napoleonic wars. As
a result of embargoes the average price of sugar on the Continent from
1807 to 1815 was 30 cents per pound. Napoleon strove to supply the
shortage by encouraging the growing of sugar ‘beets, the build-
ing of sugar factories, and the study of the technical problems of
sugar-beet growing and sugar manufacture. His policy was so
successful that, by 1812, 40 factories were in operation in France.
This period really marked the beginning of the modern commercial
sugar-beet industry. Later development in Europe was somewhat
spasmodic, being affected by the competition of cane sugar, by the
irregular progress of the science of growing and manufacture, and by
adverse legislation.
The most rapid progress was made in Germany. There agricultural
conditions were favorable to the industry, the sugar content of beets
was increased by means of seed selection, and advances were made
» For a history of the sugar-beet industry see Harris, F. S., The Sugar Beet in America, 1919.
