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Show BEET SUGAR RANKS ( AS BIG INDUSTRY v IN AGRICULTURE "feach AmeriKfll' CI- about thirty-two pounds of U-tfT in a year and only ten ' poMfc of that ration is produced in thii country, according to calculations calcula-tions of officiate of the department depart-ment of agriculture in a report on the beet sugar industry of the United States for 1910-11, which has just been issued This point is brought out in emphasiz ing the possibility of American farmers "keeping this money at home" by raising sugar be '.ts. Commenting on the sugar beet industry in this countiy, the department of agriculture says: "Beet sugar is a comparatively recent product of this countiy and can scarcely bo said to have existed twenty years ago. The production during the twelfth census year (1899) amounted to 81,729 short tons, while the 1912 product aggregated 700,000 s-hort tons, valued ct $73,000,-000- The growth of this Indus, try and the plans for its increase indicates that beet raising for sugar purposes is much desired by farmers for profit aid cultural cul-tural benefit to the land- "There are now in operation sixty-six factories in seventeen states which used during the last season 5,062,030 tons of beets produced on 473,875 acres and the industry has become, one of the mainstays and chief supports sup-ports of agriculture under r-' gation in the semiarid states. Yet this industry produces practically prac-tically only one-eighth of the ! home consumption. The import-jance import-jance from entirely foreign territory ter-ritory now approximates 2.000,-000 2.000,-000 short tons annually- A hnroe 1 beet sugar production sufficient! to cut off this production would' not affect the home cane ?uar industry adversely because that' has so nearly reached its limit) 1hat any possible growth it ! may have from now on will not; '-oual the annual increased country's coun-try's consumption, which has, considerably more than doubled j in the last twenty-five years and now is greater per capita .ban any other country except England- "With our present low average aver-age of one-quarter short tons of beet sugar per acre it would require re-quire 1,000,000 acres to produce . the 2,000,000 short tons now imported or, as i; acreage harvest har-vest d the last year was slightly le?s than 475,00). it would need the production of 2,000,000 acres under beets to equal the entire home, demand, a condition to ;which for more than eighty years economists have looked forward." |