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62D CONGRESS ) a7 > { DocuMENT
2d Session f SENATE t No. 930

SUGAR BEETS
IN NEW ENGLAND AND THE
FREE SUGAR BILL OF THE
HOUSE OF RERRE-
SENTATIVES

LETTERS OF

TRUMAN G. PALMER TO HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE
CONCERNING THE PRODUCTION IN 1837 AT
NORTHAMPTON, MASS., OF THE FIRST BEET
SUGAR PRODUCED IN AMERICA, AND THE
ADAPTABILITY OF NEW ENGLAND CONDI-
TIONS TO THE PRODUCTION OF BEET SUGAR

PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE
AUGUST 16, 1912.—Ordered to be printed

WASHINGTON
1912

AUG 24 1919

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~~ $

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SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

WasuineTon, D. C., August 10, 1912.
Hon. Henry Casor Lopes,
United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

My Dear Senator: The country needed no new evidence of the
fact that your views on national economy are\not bounded by State
lines or colored by the New England hills. Nevertheless, when,
without a cane or beet sugar factory within 500 miles of your State,
you espoused the cause of the domestic sugar industry of Louisiana,
the Middle West, and arid America, you gave-the country fresh evi-
dence of your interest in the welfare of all the people.

Although now producing maple sugar only, the State of Massa-
chusetts has the distinction of eae the first in the Union to pro-
duce sugar from beets, since grown to an industry of such proportions
that American farmers and other toilers of the Middle and far West
depend upon it for $45,000,000 of their annual income. And so,
when your political opponents proposed to blot out this industry and
transfer it to foreign lands and a handful of New York refiners, it
seemed fitting that it should be defended by the senior Senator from
the State which gave it birth 73 years ago.

While in the early days the industry did not thrive in New England
or elsewhere in America, permit me to suggest that no climatic or
other natural obstacle prevents its successful establishment through-
out New England. Also allow me to observe that the most effective
manner in which to obliterate the term ‘abandoned New England
farms” is by establishing the beet-sugar industry in their midst, for
wherever sugar beets are planted, worn-out soils become rejuvenated
and fallow and abandoned fields become fertile.

In 1839 Mr. David Lee Child erected a small beet-sugar factory at
Northampton, Mass., in which was produced the first. beet sugar
made in America. Following is an extract from the 1839 report of
the second exposition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic
Association:

D. L. Child, Northampton. Beet-root sugar, crude and refined. Manufactured
by the improved process of Schuzenbach. The crude or raw sugar is well made,
dry, and of good grain. The refined shows that this article can be made of as good

quality as sugar from the cane. Of the extent of the manufacture by the exhibitor
the committee are not informed. A silver medal.

The medal bore the followimg inscription:

The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Award to David Lee Child,
for the first beet sugar made in America. Exhibition of 1839.
3

*

4 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

The same year the Massachusetts Agricultural Society awarded
Child’s company a cash premium of $100. The language of the
society was as follows:

Premium of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, 1839. To the person, persons,
or corporation who shall manufacture from the sugar beet, sugar in the greatest quantity
and of the best quality in the year 1839, giving a full and particular account of the

process of manufacturing it, a premium of $100.

This premium was awarded on the 5th of December, 1839, to the Northampton
Beet Sugar Co.

Mr. Edward Church was associated with Child in this enterprise.
Church, an American, lived in France for many years, where he made
a careful study of the sugar industry, with a view to erecting a factory
on his property near Paris, but because of the chaotic conditions
which succeeded the French Revolution he returned to Northampton
and joined Child in his enterprise.

In 1837 Church issued a 54-page book, Notice on the Beet Sugar,
from which I quote:

We lookwith confidence to our Legislature foreverysupportand encouragement which
our infant enterprise can faicly ask. The liberality extended to the indigenous silk
producers will not, surely, be withheld from us, for if there is any one undertaking which
deserves the special patronage of a wise and paternal Government it is one like ours,
which eminently promotes our first, best, and most permanent source of wealth and
comfprt—agriculture. * * * :

It is proper here to remark that by the beet culture a new and important article of
food is created without in any manner diminishing the usual production of grain or
the feed for stock, but, on the contrary, materially increasing them both, as it 1s pecu-
liarly fitted to take the place of the fallow oc to alternate with crops of grain, and thus
essentially facilitate a good system of farming. d

In this anticipation of increased prosperity to our country in general from the pro-
duction of indigenous sugar there is nothing fanciful or exaggerated, and it is especially
applicable to our own New England, whose hardy and enterprising sons are yearly
and daily deserting their firesides in pursuit of fortune in the far West, whilst their
own native soil, endeared by so many associations, contains mines of wealth which
only requires to be sought to be found. * * *

To conclude, no doubt can possibly remain on a thorough and candid investigation
of the subject that the introduction of the beet culture and its manufacture into sugar
is destined to create a memorable epoch in the prosperity of our Republic, not infe-
rior, probably, to the cotton culture, and having over that some preeminent advan-
tages, therefore to consider it only as a means of replacing a foreign product by one of
our own growth would be to take a very narrow and inadequate view of the subject.

CAUSES OF EARLY FAILURES.

As with other pioneers, the causes which led to Child’s lack of suc-
cess were humerous. The beets in France contained but 10 to 104
per cent of sugar, Child’s even less; machinery was crude, the entire
plant representing an investment of but a few thousand dollars;
much of the work was performed by hand, making it expensive to
operate; technical knowledge was limited, and but one-half to two-
thirds of the sugar was recovered. The price of beets was but $2.75
per ton in France, while Child, with his crude plant, paid $4 per ton.
Child knew what the culture would do for the farmers, but the farmers
did not. They demanded more for their beets than he could afford
to pay, and, like other pioneers in the industry, he was compelled to
give up the struggle.

To-day the average sugar content of American beets is 16.35 per
cent; the investment in the factory buildings and machinery is from
$500,000 up; the smallest plant slices 400 tons per day. They extract

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. 5

the maximum amount of sugar; all the labor is done by machinery,
the hand of man never touching either the beet or its product from the
time the beets are plowed and topped in the field until the retail
grocer opens the sack to weigh out the sugar. No product could be
more cleanly and sanitary. ‘To-day the price of beets in the United
States ranges from $5.50 to $7 per ton, depending upon the situation
of the factory and the sugar content of the beets, and some factories,
having contracts for all the beets they can slice, are compelled to refuse
offers for thousands of additional acres.

ERRONEOUS CONCLUSIONS

Because of early failures in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Wisconsin, followed by success in Cali-
fornia, the belief became general that sugar beets only would thrive in
that State. Later, the Department of Agriculture determined that
in a northerly belt which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
there are 274,000,000 acres of well-defined sugar-beet land, and if but
one of these acres out of each 200 were cultivated to sugar beets, the
$100,000,000 which we now send abroad annually for the purchase
of sugar, would be paid to American farmers and other toilers. After
the enactment of the Dingley tariff bill in 1897, capital rushed into
the industry and plants were erected as far east as Binghamton and
Rome, N. Y. Through lack of capital and technical knowledge. dis-
couragement overtook some of the managements before success
crowned their efforts and several modern plants were removed from
New York and Michigan to the far West. To-day the farmers and
tradespeople and the capitalists who sunk their fortuncs, regret the
hasty action which deprived them of an industry which now would
be a success and add prosperity to the entire community. Beet
sugar now is produced in 70 factories, situated in 16 States.

RICHER BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND THAN IN THE WEST.

Not only have we an abundance of sugar-beet land in the United
States, but you have it in New England and there is far less reason
for your people to send away $20,000,000 a year for the purchase of
the sugar they consume, than there would be to go aes for the
purchase of cotton. cloth, machinery, silverware, * brass goods.
They can not grow the cotton or mine the metals, uit they can both
grow the sugar beets and extract the sugar, thereby becoming pro-
ducers instead of merely finishers.

As you perhaps are aware some years ago both the Department of
Agriculture and the State agricultural experiment stations made
many thousand tests of sugar beets grown in various parts of the
country, in order to determine what territory was best adapted for
their culture, and. itis within the territory where these beets gave
favorable results that factories since have been located, which now
annually distribute $45,000,000 to neighboring farmers and laborers.
Some of the New England States showed remarkable results, but that
fact was lost sight of, and the $100,000,000 which has been invested
in the industry ‘during the past 17 years has been placed in the West,
where 70 factories now turn out an annual product valued at
$60,000,000.

6 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

In 1900 I tabulated the results of 30,430 analyses made by the
Department of Agriculture and State experiment stations, classifying
and averaging them by.States, and the significant fact was disclosed
that the New England tests outranked those made in the West.
My interests at that time being confined to the far West I also lost
sight of these eastern tests until they were called to my mind in 1906,
and they then were laid before Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire,
and the Secretary of Agriculture, both of whom were enthusiastic
over the prospect of establishing the industry in New England. But
for the illness and final death of the department field official who was
delegated by the Secretary to conduct an exhaustive line of new
experiments, the probabilities are that to-day New England would
be producing a portion if not all of her sugar requirements.

The tabulation of early experiments conducted in New England
and in Michigan, Colorado, and California, the three States which
since have become our greatest sugar producers, is as follows:

Size of Sugar

| beets. | content. Purity.
|
| Ounces. | Per cent. | .
Massachusetts. 1890, 6 tests; 1898, 4 tests; 1899, 9 tests....................- 21.0 13.2 82.2
New Hampshire, 1891, 1 test; 1898, 2 tests; 1899, 4 tests............4..--..| 22.0 14.3 84.4
Vermont, 1897, 8 tests; 1898, 68 tests; 1899, 16 tests............ AEN ES, 2k rh } 22.0 1332 82.3
California 95 stests, COVELING i VCANSaea nee sees see enen eee eee eee tee 21.3 13.6 83.9
Colorado; 536 tests, covering 7syearsit. tne oe. os Sa ee eee aa a 20.5 13.9 80.0
Michigan: (959 itests (covering 7 years 4-2 saeeee ee ye nae eee ee eee eens 22.0 13.9 80.8
Average of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.........- 21.6 13t5 82.9
Average of California, Colorado, and Michigan..:.............. ees Dile2 13.8 81.5

|
|

As will be observed, New England excelled in both tonnage and
purity and was but fractionally lower in sugar content. A sugar beet
of 13.5 per cent sugar and 82.9 purity will yield considerably more
sugar than a beet of 13.8 per cent sugar and 81:5 purity, and hence the
advantage was with the New England States, rather than with the
three Western States in which the industry since has become one of
the most important wealth producers they possess; 290,000 acres of
beets yielding them a product valued at $35,000,000. Had the
industry developed in accordance with these tests, New England
would have added her quota to our domestic production of sugar, and
her farm lands also would have doubled in productivity and value.

New England has the soil, the climate, the capital, the people, the
home market and practically there would be no freight charges in
distributing the product. If, as the cotton industry moves South to
get closer to the cotton fields, your operatives could be given remunera-
tive employment in beet fields and sugar factories and gradually
become land owners, as do the laborers and renters in the West, their
condition would be improved instead of injured by the change. The
West is thankful for the New England capital and brains which have
helped to develop its sugar and other industries, but here are green
fields with wealth-producing possibilities, right at their doors.

NEW ENGLAND HAS THE AREA. ‘
_ Some have said that there is not a sufficient area of cultivable land
in New England to establish such an industry, but in 1910, New
England had 568,000 acres in corn, wheat, barley, rye, and buckwheat,

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. 7

and nearly one-half as much more in potatoes. As 5,000 acres of beets
is sufficient to supply the average:modern beet-sugar factory, New
England has an abundant acreage with which to build up an extensive
sugar factory. The land need not adjoin or Jie close to a factory.
In the West, the major portion of the beets are shipped in by rail,
sometimes as far as 100, and even 200 miles, but iti usual area is
that covered by a freight rate of 50 cents per ton, which generally
covers a distance of 40 to 50 miles, giving an 80 to 100 mile radius
from whence, to draw the supply.

NEW ENGLAND CROP YIELDS ABOVE THE AVERAGE.

Others have said that the soils of New England are too_poor,to
produce beets, but this opinion is not well grounded. New England
farmers have nothing of which to be ashamed and everything of which
to be proud when comparing their yields with the average for the
United States, for of wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, potatoes, “and other
crops their average yield far exceeds the aver age for the United States.
Denmark, with the poorest soil and agricultural climate in Europe,
not only supplies its people with the sugar they consume, but is build-
ing new factories and preparing to export sugar. Establish the beet-
sugar industry in New England and soon some of her 4,000,000 acres
which have gone down to hay will be brought back to tillage, as were
grasslands in Europe.

NEW ENGLAND NOT TOO FAR NORTH.

Others have said that New England, and especially Maine, is too
far north to produce sugar- beets but the sugar-beet areas of both
Denmark and Sweden are 600 miles farther nor th than is the northern-
most point of Maine, and in Sweden the farmers are so anxious to
grow beets that the factories have a greater supply than they can
use. They are compelled to employ inspectors, whose business it is
to see that farmers do not deliver beets from a greater acreage than
their contracts with the factories call for. The ‘Canadian factor y in
Alberta i is far north of Maine, as also are the two factories recently
erected in Manchuria. The general belief has been that sugar beets
would not thrive in the northerly damp, cloudy climate of Great
Britain, but they produce richer beets and more of them to the acre
than are produced in Germany, and now are constructing their first
modern factory. The richest sugar beets produced in the United
States are grown in the vicinity of. Billings, Mont., to supply the huge
factory recently erected at that point, where so anxious are the farm-
ers to grow beets that they offer contracts for thousands of acres
beyond the capacity of the plant.

EFFECT OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY ON EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE.

When this industry was introduced into Europe, one-third of the
level lands were regarded as worthless, one-fourth of the fields were
fallow, and the yield of cereals from the remaining fields was but
12 bushels per acre. To-day rich and poor lands are under the plow,
less than 5 per cent of the fields are fallowed, and the average yields

8 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

are far in excess of those which are secured in the Mississippi Valley,
the most fertile area of like extent in the world.

Of wheat, rye, barley, and oats, Europe, without Russia, sowed
156,000,000 acres in 1907 fai harvested 4,000,000,000 bushels, while
we sowed 85,500,000 acres to the same crops and harvested but
1,500,000,000 ‘bushels, our virgin soils returning but 184 bushels per
acre, while the average yield from Europe's "100 000,000 acres of
rejuvenated soil and 50, 000,000 acres of soil which was regarded as
worthless prior to the advent of sugar-beet culture, was 26} bushels
per acre. .

By reason of the introduction of sugar-beet culture and the scien-
tific system of rotation which it demanded, the combined yield per
acre of these four cereal crops in Germany has reached 394 bushels,
an increase of 80 per cent in bushels per acre during the past 30 years,
during which time the increase in the United States has amounted
to but 6.6 per cent. This is what the introduction of sugar-beet
culture has accomplished.

WHY SUGAR-BEET CULTURE IMPROVES THE SOIL.

Important as is the $60,000,000 annual product of the beet-sugar
factories of the West, it is of minor account when compared to the
rejuvenating effect which the culture of sugar beets has on the soil.
The reason is simple. Consider the conditions in Europe. When
sugar-beet culture was introduced their farmers were practicing
what is known as the ‘‘three-crop system” of rotation—three suc-
cessive cereal crops, followed by one year of fallowing, in order to
rest the soil and to enable them to pull out the dense growth of
weeds by hand. They were plowing but 3 to 4 inches deep, and
the fertility of the thin layer of locse surface soil was all but
exhausted. The grain roots were unable to penetrate the hard
soil underneath, and could they have done so it would have been of
no avail, for, containing no humus and not having been aerated, it

ras not fertile. Being a deep rooter, a prerequisite to sugar-beet
culture was that the soil be stirred to a depth of 8 to 10 inches.
At the outset farmers in northern Europe rebelled at deep plowing,
which each year turned up a new and abundant crop of stones to be
carted off the fields, just as it would in New England. But once
they saw the revolution produced in their yields of other crops,
factories could not be erected rapidly enough to treat the beets they
would grow.

As in order to leave but one beet in a place, the tender beetlet has
to undergo the shock cf thinning soon after it comes up, the sugar
beet demanded a well-prepared, mellow seed bed. Gathering the
sugar in its leaves from the atmosphere by the aid of the light and
storing it up in the root, it would not gather the maximum amount
of sugar if the light were cut off through being shaded by weeds,
and the eradication of the weeds meant not only a further stirring
of the soil by cultivation and hoeing, but that they were removed
before going to seed, thus leaving “weedless fields for succeeding
crops.

Being plowed out in the autumn gave an extra fall plowing, which
left the land in condition to absorb instead of shed the fall and

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. 3

winter rains and store up the moisture for the following season’s
crop.

With the removal of the main root, myriads of fibrous roots are

broken off and left in the soil to an average of a ton to the acre, and
in rotting they not only deposited humus in the lower strata of soil,
but left minute channels thr ough which it became aerated, and hence

fertile. The roots of subsequent crops followed these interstices and
drew nutriment from two and three times the depth of soil formerly
reached, and hence the farmers doubled and trebled their soil with-
out increasing their acreage. It all seems very simple, but it has
taken us a long time to realize it, and some of our farmers still are
in ignorance.

A large portion of Germany is but a sandy plain, and her enormous
crop yields are due to the fact that for each 3 acres of cereals grown
her farmers raise 1 acre of ee crops, thus ‘producing .a root crop
on each field every fourth year. They grow sugar beets wherever
possible, and are the greatest oda ae of this vegetable in the world.
So thoroughly do they y appreciate the influence of a root crop on the
yield of other crops that in sections where there are no factories to
which they can sell their sugar beets they grow beets or other root
crops and feed them to stock, as they do in Great Britain. But
where there are sugar factories, the farmers secure the double advan-

tage of first selling the crop for sugar, and then hauling its full feeding

value back to the farm in the residue. For this reason, farm lands
and rents are much higher in the vicinity of sugar factories than
they are elsewhere.

One of the many advantages of this industry, one which even yet
is not fully appreciated in the W est, was thoroughly appreciated 73
years ago by David Lee Child. In his book, Culture of the Beet and
Manufacture of Beet Sugar, published in Boston in 1840, Mr. Child
said:

It is supposed that the soil of the West is peculiarly adapted to the beet. We
have no doubt of the fact, and that the beet sugar, as a manufacturing concern, will
be more profitable there for some time than in any other portion of the country,
partly from the distance of the great markets and partly from the cheapness of land
and fuel; but we doubt whether any part of our territory is destined to be more bene-
fited by it than the New England and other States, which have hard and poor lands
and a lack of manure. In the West, as we are informed, manure is not an object of
importance to the farmer except as creating a nuisance and causi ng expense and
trouble to move it out of the way. Nay, we have heard that farmers in that region
often abandon their log barns and build new ones rather than remove the manure
to the gulleys; but in New England manure is the life and soul of agriculture. If
the beet-sugar business can boast of any advantage more parti ‘cularly preeminent,
it is the multiplication and improvement of live stock and manure. This will be in

a great measure lost upon the West, while it will be precious beyond calculation to
the North, and very valuable to some portions of the South.

What Child wrote about the value of barnyard manure 73 years ago
is true to-day, as it was then, since with all the advance in agriculture
and chemistry no s satisfactory substitute has been found for ‘barny ard

manure.

BENEFICENT AGRICULTURAL EFFECTS ARE IMMEDIATE.

It does not require a century im which to rejuvenate worn-out soils.
Results quickly follow the establishment of a beet-sugar factory and
have from the beginning of the industry. Child cited M. C respel, one

10 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

of the foremost French agriculturists of his day, who was knighted by
the French King and several foreign sovereigns for his contributions to
agricultural science. He was the owner of numerous farms in north-
ern France, and, testifying before the Chamber of Deputies in 1837, he
said:

The culture of the beet has increased remarkably the value of real estate. I lately
purchased, at the rate of $152 per acre, some lands which were let at $3.80 an acre.
Since I have cultivated these lands with beets in a rotation of crops, the number of
sheep kept thereon has doubled and the neat stock has trebled. The rents of lease-
hold property has doubled where the land was of middling quality, and in some
cases they have quadrupled.

These results have been duplicated in the United States wherever
the beet-sugar industry has been established. The Department of
Agriculture conducted an inquiry which covered the increase in farm
values from 1900 to 1905. The inquiry reached every township in the
United States and the results showed that where sugar-beet culture
had been introduced land values had risen to a much greater extent
than in other sections, and that in sections where sugar beets were
produced the increase in the value of the farms on which sugar beets
were grown was much in excess of those in the same locality on which
sugar “beets had not been grown.

In California, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Michigan, and Nebraska,
the average increase in the value of nonbeet-producing farms from
1900 to 1905, was $13.90 per acre, while the average increase in the
value of farms in the same States on which sugar beets were grown,
was $32.97 per acre or nearly three times as great. In discussing the
influence of sugar-beet culture, the Secretary of Agriculture says:

From the best information I have it may be stated: The beet-sugar industry, where
installed, has been one of the most potent factors developing agricultural conditions,
not only in sugar production, but in all agricultural features associated. Especially
is this true in the semiarid West. In this section the ordinary beet-sugar plant neces-
sitates an investment of at least a million dollars for buying the land, erecting the
building, procuring equipment, producing the facilities for irrigation, transportation,
and other features necessary for successful work.

The capitalization of such a plant and the building of the same is the incentive for
projecting many other improvements, subsidiary, but important to agricultural
development, such as the dairy, creamery, breeding of animals, feeding and. preparing
the same for market, also the fruit industry, cereal ‘and alfalfa production, the alfalfa-
meal mill, canneries, preserving fruit, and many other things made possible by the
existence of an enterprise capable of capitalizing all farm productive conditions and
promoting extensive farm cooperation in many ways.

As this industry develops in the West, it is the main feature attracting and support-
ing many things and uniting them in an intensive agricultural husbandry. As it
works out in the West, it is the ‘‘mother lode” of agricultural development. It isand
will continue to be the most important medium developing the benefits and promot-
ing the success of our national reclamation act.

Through its by-products in the older States it has asserted a strong influence on
agricultural interests. It has stimulated the animal industry and the consequent
products of the same.

Its effect on the value ‘of lands is quite varied, according to places and conditions.
In all places of the United States its favorable influence in this respect has been quite
marked. Examine conditions in mountain States where crops are grown by irrigation,
formerly used for grazing, lands worth from $3 to $5 per acre. A sugar factory, the
means and incentive of an irrigation ditch, has made these lands available for produc-
ing sugar beets, the finest fruits, the produc ts of dairy and creamery, the fattened
animal for the block; and when thoroughly equipped for these purposes lands are
worth from $100 to $300 per acre. * *

In the old farm districts of the Aeeieeanen Valley and farther east, Ohio, Wisconsin,
Michigan, etc., rent charges have generally doubled, quite often’ trebled with the
introduction of the sugar factory. It must be presumed that land values would
follow such influences in a like degree.

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. Jy

.

The effect of the beet-sugar industry ‘‘on local business generally” has been very
pronounced. Where installed, it has remarkably recouped and energized all kinds
of local business. It has revived and made over towns already established. In places
where towns did not exist it has made new ones which have become important centers
Ofirades 3. 7%

The sugar industry has had a remarkable influence in the stimulation, elevation, and
improvement generally of the live-stock interests. This has occurred in bettering the
breeds, increasing the number of stock, and multiplying the productive resources of
the stock industry. It has turned vast areas from simple grazing to stock production
for all purposes; from producing the ‘‘stocker” to producing a good quality of meat
for consumption; also dairy and creamery products and breeding fine blooded animals
of different kinds.

The sugar industry in extending, promoting, and increasing the facilities for agricul-
ture, in creating a demand for rotation, fertilization, a higher, better knowledge of
conditions, resources, and application, of methods, has very much extended and pro-
moted the production of all other crops. * *.* \

From every consideration another potent influence due to sugar-beet culture is the
fact that it requires rotation of crops. Wherever it is adapted it is not a rival of other
farm productions. It adjusts itself to a systematic cycle of rotation, no matter what
be the list of other natural crops. It is not only not a rival of these other productions,
but logically it must have them, and promotes them for its own best success. In the
older factory districts, this fact is one of the first observable benefits due to the culture
of sugar beets.

Every sugar factory management in this country must necessarily calk to its aid a
thoroughly scientific and practical agriculturist, and under him a corps of assistants
equipped and conversant, not only with cultivating sugar beets, but familiar with
methods of culture, fertilization, drainage, rotation, and all the necessary scientific
knowledge to produce successfully all kinds of crops indigenous to the particular
locality. This agriculturist and his assistants are constantly traveling over the sugar-
beet producing district of this particular factory, advising farmers particularly in the
growth of sugar beets, and generally in the production of all other crops. They are
as much interested incidentally in the handling of the lands producing other crops as
they are particularly the one in charge. It is these other lands that will produce
sugar beets next year.

A sugar-factory district is an ‘‘extension course” in agriculture to every farmer in
the district, whether he be growing sugar beets or not. It could not be conceived,
with such influence constantly in operation, that the sugar industry is not exerting
a potent influence most favorable in production of all crops.

AVERAGE INCREASED YIELD OF OTHER CROPS AFTER BEING ROTATED.
WITH SUGAR BEETS.

During the past three years I have corresponded with hundreds of
American farmers throughout the sugar-beet producing States of the
West concerning their experience in growing this crop in rotation
with cereal crops. Universal enthusiasm is expressed by them, and
115 of the number were able to state their acreage yields of other
crops before and after rotating them with sugar beets. The average
results obtained by these 115 farmers were as follows:

Average yield.

Before beet | After beet | Per cent

culture. | culture. increase.
WWihl@a iets oo 2 Sesh Ce Ae eas Sed Ie Ee Sto a a esos i. 28.88 | 43.07 49.1
(Corin. Y oe Se Re Ae Ree ae eens PR See NSH ER oo eka SC ere 41.60 53.10 27.6
OHS 5 ve se OR bee ech DEE SS We ee ee en nas Oe ee eee 40.90 50. 60 48.1
IRIS on cog tes oeebe aos Renee co IUebn ae OHeROr OSC a a ocE SSE rea pouch noses 38.97 | 59. 40 ae

IE RGTOGS. Ss Seep RA de RO eSR Oro amen CRB Eten) a iS PRes ce amnnoreSrEene 151.97 222. 20

12 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

In arid America the culture of sugar beets and alfalfa are agricul-
tural necessities, for they scarcely can grow and transport low-priced
roducts to eastern markets in competition with the Mississippi
Valley. but turning their alfalfa into stock and their sugar beets into
sugar, they have products of such value that the freight does not eat
up the profit. The necessity in New England is for a crop which will
rejuvenate its worn-out soils and bring them back into tillage. Europe
accomplished it with sugar beets; New England can accomplish it in
the same manner.

EARLY FAILURES IN THE UNITED STATES. .

In view of the possibility of the sugar beet becoming the means of
the revivifying of New England « agriculture, allow me for a few:sen-
tences to call to your mind the truly strange career of this humble
vegetable in this country, where half a century ago every investor in,
it sunk his fortune.

In 1835 it started on its serpentine course of disaster at Philadel-

hia, where two Germans, Vaughn and Ronaldson, built the first
factory. From Philadelphia it wound its way up to Northampton,
Mass., where David Lee Child erected a little factory and was assisted
by the French consul at Boston, M. Isnard. As stated before, they
also failed.

From Northampton it migrated to Portland, Me., where the fac-
tory failed because the farmers starting for the factory with a load of
beets were offered more for them for cattle-feeding purposes than the
factory, with its crude equipment, was able to pay. Since that time
the sugar beet has been bred up to contain 16 to 20 per cent of sugar,
and had they secured such beets as New England can produce to-day,
and had they possessed the half million dollar equipment of ma-
chinery since invented, and with which all American beet-sugar fac-
tories now are equipped, they could have doubled the price paid for
beets and thereby have secured an ample supply.

In 1852 this would-be industry wandered across the plains to Salt
Lake City, where the Mormons imported the machinery from France
and hauled it overland from Omaha by ox teams. From there x
returned to the East, to Chatsworth Park, Ill., to Freeport, IL,
Black Hawk, Wis., to Fond du Lac, Wis., east to New Jersey, a
then headed west again, traveling across the continent to California,
where it wandered up and down the coast for several years, and
finally, at Alameda, Cal., in 1879, E. H. Dyer brought success out of
50 years of failure and losces of $2,000,000 in seven different States.

From that time on, its course reminds one of the discovery of gold
at Cripple Creek, where miners had tramped over the precious metal
for years, in ignorance of its existence. The westward course of
disaster in the beet t-sugar industry was to be succeeded by an eastern
course to be crowned with success.

The failure of 1852 in Utah became a success in 1891. Wisconsin’s
early failures turned into success in 1901. The Illinois failures of
1863 and 1870 became a success in 1905. The 418 recent tests made
in Pennsylvania which showed an average sugar content of 12.66—a
purity of 81.8—and a tonnage of 15.63

would have brought unlim-
ited success to Vaughn and Ronaldson if they had possessed the
necessary know ledge | and equipment.

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. 13

Who dare assert that Portland, Me., or Northampton, Mass.,
which latter produced the first beet sugar inthe United States, shall
not in the near future become the seat of a prosperous sugar industry
and reap the reward which the pioneers deserved but failed to secure?

CONTRAST IN GOVERNMENT POLICIES.

The industry was not out of its swaddling cloths when our beet-
sugar pioneers went down to defeat. But the rulers of Europe per-
ceived its value to their national economy and nursed it, with the
result that they now produce as much sugar as is supplied by the
Tropics and, having doubled the supply, have lowered the price of
sugar for the world.

While Europe’s policy of encouragement tothe beet-sugar industry
has been steadfast, that of the United States, if it lias had a policy,
has been wavering and unstable, legislators seeming to be ignorant
of the indirect agricultural advantages to be derived from producing
our sugar supply from beets. Evenin the present day when the high
cost of living is absorbing the attention of every consumer, rich and
poor, little or no heed is paid to the fact that the general introduction of
this industry would double the yield of our: fields and the stock-
carrying capacity of our farms, and while enriching the farmer, would
‘lower the price of food commodities, thereby benefiting every con-
sumer in the land.

THE HIGH COST OF LIVING.

Our best western Government lands largely have been absorbed,
and the country youth of the West, unable to secure attractive home-
steads, is flocking to British America in ever-increasing numbers.

While the producing class of the West is being drained of its’ best
blood, the consuming class of the country is being increased by the
immigrants who land in New York and flock to the cities rather than
to the country.

Our western ranges have been broken up, and as a result of the
decline of the cattle-grazing industry, within the past week beef cat-
tle on the hoof at Chicago sold at the highest figure reached since the
Civil War.

Our agricultural imports in 1910 exceeded those of 1900 to the
value of $267,000,000, an increase of nearly one-third. During the
same period the value of our exports of breadstuffs fell off $130,000,000,
or 50 per cent. The value of our exports of animals declined from
$43,000,000 in 1900 to $17,000,000 in 1910, or 40 per cent, while the
value of meat exports declined $15,000,000. The value of our exports
of all agricultural products except cotton has fallen from $600,000,000
in 1900 to $420,000,000 in 1910, which is $266,000,000 less than the
value of our agricultural imports. Not including cotton, the United
States has become an importer instead of an exporter of agricultural
products.

Our increase in the production of farm products is not keeping pace
with the increase in the number of consumers. Unable to supply
fresh lands to settlers and unable to attract people from the cities to
the farms, to what must we have recourse? To an increase in the
crop yields of the fields which already are under cultivation. And

14 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

how best can this increase be assured? By adopting a simple method
which involves no expense, a method which never has been a failure,
but on the contrary, has been an unqualified success in every country
of Europe. d

With all the agricultural science we have employed and all the
virgin lands we have added to our cultivated area, our combined yield
per acre of wheat, rye, barley, and oats has been increased but 6.6
per cent during the past 30 years, while Germany, through the intro-
duction of sugar-beet culture, has increased its average yields of the
same crops 80 per cent during the same period, and now of these
crops secures an average yield of 39.45 bushels per acre from her
rejuvenated soils, as compared to our average yield of 21.6 bushels
from the virgin soils of the United States.

These results are not confined to Germany. The thinking men of
Europe have accomplished their purpose through introducing and
extending the beet-sugar industry to a point where not only does
continental Europe supply its 400,000,000 people with all the sugar
they consume, but with an annual surplus for export, valued at
$175,000,000, while the United States continues to import sugar to
the value of $100,000,000 a year and to cultivate 18 acres of land in
order to secure as many bushels of grain as Germany harvests from
10 acres.

In this connection the fact is worthy of note that none of these
nations encouraged the domestic production of sugar because of a
belief that it could be produced at home more cheaply than it could be
imported from the Tropics. The cost of the sugar was, and is, of
secondary importance. One and all encourage and protect their
domestic sugar industry, because of the incalculable benefit which
comes from the increased yield of other crops through rotation with
sugar beets.

While we have been speculating as to the wisdom of certain scien-
tific treatments of the soil and how much this or that fertilizer would
add to the yield and to what extent the farmer could employ it with
profit, Europe has solved the problem of crop yield by merely adding
a new crop to the rotation, a crop which more than pays for itself
and hence involves no added expense. The experience of a century
has demonstrated the fact that the general introduction of sugar-
beet culture would solve the problem of the high cost of meat and
breadstuffs.

Inasmuch as New England is in the sugar belt, inasmuch as her
soils would be so greatly benefited by adopting beet culture, and
inasmuch as her great dairying interests need the rich by-products
for stock food, it seems little short of criminal that some of the New
England capitalists who have invested in western beet-sugar factories
should not have started the industry in their native States.

And now, if at last, by the aid of modern technical and agricultural
science, the modest sugar beet can be made to reclaim the abandoned
farms of New England, we will reverse the phrase and say, ‘‘ Hastward
the star of empire takes its course.”’

Your views on national economies embrace the struggling industries
of the West and South, and if I have been of service in directing your
attention to the economic importance of this industry for your section,
or can be of assistance in its establishment therein, I shall be most
happy.

Sincerely, yours, TruMAN G. PALMER.

=

SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND. 15

Dr. PaascHeE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE GERMAN REICHSTAG, ON THE
INFLUENCE OF SuGAR-BEET CULTURE.

Herr H. Paasche, Vice President of the German Reichstag is one of
Germany’s foremost thinkers and is a recognized authority on sugar
and sugar-beet culture. He is the author of The World’s Sugar Pro-
duction, a volume of 338 pages which for years has been considered
a standard publication throughout the sugar world.

Dr. Paasche has visited the principal cane and beet sugar pro-
ducing countries of the world, and in July last arrived in America on
his fourth visit to this country. The Springfield (Mass.) Union of
July 14 contained a full-page interview with Dr. Paasche. The
following editorial is from the Augusta (Me.) Journal of August 5,
1912: :

It will surprise the average American accustomed to consider that his country’s
claim to supremacy as a food-growing nation is based on its yield of wheat and corn
to be told that the United States will soon lead the world in the output of another great
food crop, namely sugar. Yet this is the prediction of no less an authority than Herr °

Paasche, former vice chairman of the German Reichstag and prominently identified
with the development of the German beet-sugar industry, who is now in this country

on a tour of inspection. ‘‘The United States has every condition necessary to a great

and rapid development as a sugar producer,”’ said Herr Paasche, ‘‘it is the only coun-
try, so far as I know, that can grow both beet and cane sugar within its borders. You
have hundreds of millions of acres of land adapted to the growing of sugar beets. You
have thoroughly up-to-date beet-sugar factories manned by experts, and you have here
at home the greatest sugar market in the world. In a few years I expect to see you
growing all the sugar required for your own use and possibly more besides.”

It was pointed out to the German leader that Congress might decide that it would
be wiser to purchase our sugar supply abroad instead of growing it at home and might
pass a free sugar bill to bring this about, but he declined to take this possibility seri-
ously. ‘‘From selfish motives we would be glad to see that happen,” he explained,
“but you Americans are too clever voluntarily to give up the advantages you will
enjoy from the building up of this industry. The use of root crops, particularly the
sugar beet, in rotation with cereals is at the foundation of the great improvement in
agricultural conditions that has taken place in Germany and the adoption of the same
plan here will result ina vast increase in your output of all your principal farm crops.”’

)

Extract FRoM “NOTES ON THE BEET SuGAR,”’ BY EDWARD
Cuurcu, NorTHAMPTON, Mass., 18387.

But an abundant supply at a cheap rate of a very essential article
of consumption, important as it surely must be considered, is not the
only advantage to which we are to look in the culture of the sugar
beet. Every man who has the least knowledge of agriculture is aware
how important to the improvement of the land is the introduction of
a culture destructive to weeds; artificial meadows will not alone
answer the desired object; weeded crops must form a part of a sound
system, and it is to these that Flanders and some other countries owe
their agricultural riches. The establishment of manufactories of beet-

‘root sugar would unquestionably be the most effectual means of

introducing this, with the best rotation of crops, and producing one
of those rare and happy revolutions in the prosperity of a nation
which, if not thoroughly understood by contemporaries, will neverthe-
less be noted by posterity as an epoch in its agricultural and com-
mercial wealth. It must not be supposed that the benefits antici-
pated will be limited to the extent of territory necessary for the

16 SUGAR BEETS IN NEW ENGLAND.

supply of the raw material for these manufactories; 0 iy |

benefits of the root crops are clearly demonstrated, as ieee Re:
tionably must be by the wants of the sugar manufacturer, farmers
will see that not only beets, but potatoes, carrots, and many other
varieties cultivated as food for cattle, offer an easy and profitable
means of varying their rotations and supplying at the same time the
largest possible amount of nutriment for their stock, and as a con-
sequence the best way of producing manure in abundance and there-
with ample stocks. That this has been the constant result of the
establishment of beet-root-sugar manufactories in France the sur-
rounding country clearly shows; they not only confer a benefit on
their neighborhood by the capital expended therein, but teach the
inhabitants how they can employ this capital most usefully; the con-
sequence is that a sentiment almost amounting to enthusiasm is now
felt in that Kingdom in favor of these new undertakings. Russia,
Prussia, Germany—indeed, the whole Continent of Kurope—has
awakened to the primary importance of indigenous sugar. With such
examples before us can it be for a moment admitted that our
ee with all its advantages of soil and climate and a people
inferior to no other in enterprise and genius, should long remain
behind the rest of the civilized world in the pursuit of an ‘object SO
eminently important? JI have no such fear, but on the contrary a
firm belief that if she was not the first in the race she will not long
lag behind.

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