BEET  SUGAR  INDUSTRY.
the number of sugar refineries continued to increase, their productivity grew, the importation of foreign sugar diminished. From the middle of the «fifties» a new period began in sugar refining.
With the introduction of steam machinery, the production in small works became unprofitable, it began to be concentration in comparatively few hands, and the works belonging to growers began to be closed; in this latter respect no inconsiderable importance attached to the emancipation of the serfs, as the refiners were deprived of unpaid labour. In i860 there were still 432 works, in the beginning of the «seventies» there only remained 235, while the production of sugar increased more than ten times, as also the extent of the beetroot plantations. In the course of the «seventies» the same process of centralization of production in large works continues: their number remains almost unaltered, but the quantity of sugar manufactured doubles. The system of levying excise itself led to this extension. The tax was collected not on the weight of sugar manufactured but on the normal produce of a definite quantity of beet. At the same time the laws defining the normal produce could never keep up with the technical improvements in sugar boiling, originally perhaps with the intention that the development of the industry should not be retarded by means of the excise. In consequence of this, the actual excise, thanks to a greater produce from a berko-vets of beet that was calculated according to the standard, did not exceed l/» or later even '/* of the nominal excise.
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