Beetroot, molasses and grain are the chief sources of spirit.
Flax and beetroot are also cultivated on the clay lands.
Beetroot is largely grown for the manufacture of sugar.
The principal crops are potatoes, rye and oats, but wheat and barley are grown in the more fertile districts; tobacco, flax, hops and beetroot are also cultivated.
Extraction of cane juice by diffusion (a process more fully described under the head of beetroot sugar manufacture) is adopted in a few plantations in Java and Cuba, in Louisiana Etr cti o n and the Hawaiian Islands, and in one or two factories y f i in Egypt; b u t hitherto, except under exceptional conditions (as at Aska, in the Madras Presidency, where the local price for sugar is three or four times the London price), it would not seem to offer any substantial advantage over double or triple crushing.
