Sugar Beet Vintage Botanical Illustration Postcard

The common sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) vintage botanic or botanical illustration. The sugar beet originated in Silesia in the mid-18th century. The extraction of sugar was discovered when Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, subsidised experiments to develop processes for sugar extraction. In 1747, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, professor of physics in the Academy of Science of Berlin, isolated sugar from beetroots. He showed the sugar extracted from beets was identical to that of sugar cane. His student and successor Franz Karl Achard began plant breeding sugar beet in Kaulsdorf near Berlin in 1786. Achard opened the world's first beet sugar factory in 1801, at Kunern, Silesia. The French also loved the idea and European sugar beet industry rapidly expanded. By 1840, about 5% of the world's sugar was derived from sugar beets, and by 1880, this number had risen more than tenfold to over 50%. Sugar beets were introduced to the Americas by immigrant settlers by mid-19th century. All of this from a lowly, wrinkled root. Awesome.