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Show duct ion in some locauues pu . ! price everywhere. Finally, dairying will reach Its best ! , . r-iri'H'ini' enlti-I enlti-I development lit.. .. - i vu.ed crops, bat by being regarded as i part of a unit in which Doth occur. I Wise dairymen and other livestock ! producers will recognize the necessity j of a cultivated crop in their farming I system. Without a row crop included ! in the farming system, weeds, certain i plant diseases, and some insects are bound in a few years to accumulate to such an extent as to menace the ' profitableness of their industry. No community beyond the pioneer stage can afford to overlook the necessity of such a cropping system that will insure a stable income over a period o years. Safe Crop If sugar beet growing is abandoned there is no other safe cultivated crop to which the farmer can turn. Single sources of income are always risky in a 10 or 20 year outlook, and this applies as much to dairying as to single cropping. A drop of a few cents in the price of butterfat would greatly disturb a farming system based solely on dairying. Further- j more, beet pulp and beet tops are so valuable as supplemental dairy feed j that, in addition to the salable beets, j they produce about one-third as much j feed on the acre which grew' beets as if the land had been entirely de- j voted to a feed crop. In Colorado, I sugar beet tops and crowns are regularly reg-ularly fed to livestock, either partly dried or as silage. Here is a great j feeding resource that is sadly neg-. looted in Utah. 13eet tops plowed under makes good fertilizer, but so ' would alfalfa hay. The proper way to handle both is to feed them to livestock and then use the resultant animal manures for fertilizer. 60,000 Acres Seeded In view of the facts just presented, It is the feeling of the gronomy staff ' of the Utah Agricultural College, and Sugar Beets Hi sialic iix ui an uittuvjiics uj. iiio lii&Lllu- : tion, that our farmers, our farm or- j ganizations, our business and profes- I s'ional men will .all suffer seriously Ghould the beet sugar industry furth- ! er deteriorate. They are urged to ; support in an intelligent way this ' industry so valuable to all. Utah : should not plan excessively to beets ' as it did in 1920 and 1921. but it is y inn - mU mbmm Lai ml highly important to the people of j Utah as a whole to maintain our j sugar acreage somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 acres instead of the j 50,000 acres we now have. This means that a considerably increased acreage j is desirable not only to the industrial prosperity, but also to agriculture and commercial prosperity. A 50 pet-cent pet-cent increase in volume of sugar beets would increase practically everyone's income. n intangible properties, and incomes, the intermountain states have no great future unless some form of manufacturing can be developed. Where can we make a better beginning beginn-ing than to maintain and to encourage encour-age one of the two good starts we have already made? Moreover, railroad rail-road valuations and land valuations are practically certain to deteriorate in a rural district which loses its sugar factories and the accompanying agriculture. Whole Slate Suffers Business and professional men cannot fail to sense a depression In commercial activity should the income in-come of from five to ten million dollars derived from the sugar industry indus-try be entirely stopped. Rural communities com-munities will suffer the greater pro-portianate pro-portianate injury, but business even in our larger towns will feel the disturbance. DE. GEOIiGE STEWART Agronomist, Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. 1 i i Sugar beet growing in Utah has declined more than 50 per cent since 1920. In that year there were 113,000 acres of sugar beets in the state, from which were harvested 1,261,005 tons of beets. In 192S, there were about 50,000 acres harvested which produced 560,000 tons of beets. The number of operating factories decreased de-creased from 18 in 1920 to 15 in 1915; to 11 in 1927; and to 10 in 1928. The beet acreage decreased from 113,000 ito 83,000 to 67,000 to 53,000, and finally this last season to 50,000 acres. This tremendous lapse in the beet sugar industry has taken place with scarcely more than a ripple of interest inter-est in the public mind. This state of affairs in the sugar beet industry deserves serious at- 1 The' vast decline is due in part to j the feeling of farmers that they can 1 grow other crops more profitably. This is true in certain cases, but in the main, sugar beets are twice as profitable as grain and forage crops. In 1927, 57 per cent of Utah's cropped acreage was in hay and alfalfa seed, but produced only 41 per cent of the total crop value; 31 per cent was in grain but produced only 22 per cent of the crop value. Only 5 per cent of the crop land grew sugar beets that year, but this 5 per cent produced 13 per cent of crop value. In other words, for hay and grain the ratio of value to acreage was 0.7, whereas for sugar beets it was 2.G. The average total returns from an acre of sugar beets is more than three times the averege income from grain and hay Some of the grain and hay is 0n poorer land, but the ratio is at least 2 to 1 in favor of beets. Fear Lnwarrantcd Uncertained years, such as ' 19'M and 1926, have built up a fear com-Plex com-Plex regarding sugar beets. Proper crop rotation, good manuring, and moderately assured and careful irrigation irri-gation can overcome to a considerable consider-able extent these losses. I years when normal water supply is as,uvct and when white fly injury can bo ex pceted to be low, farmers and business busi-ness men alike can afford to encourage encour-age brei growing. Good plant breed-I1;" breed-I1;" I"-''ly after a few ycai.s 1"''"''' '' a wi'ith inav be .si...,., ':- Ivaihoypcr and make consia-r'-' S-'v'h. Meanwhile, good farm-! ''-"lented by water stora' ?,ia ,:aniu! !""! ions as to whit ! Uy ,nJ,,I'y really reduce the i percentage losses in unfavorable nea-1 ns. Had seasons do come, but they I are not limji,,! to KU,,ar )ce;. . '"eS IU'Ve S"rrl seriously in pru. tention. The group concerned is much larger than most people think, j Offhand ,the professional and busi- ness man in town would say that farmers and sugar manufacturers : were the only ones affected in an important im-portant way. A somewhat more careful care-ful examination of the relationships j between the sugar industry and other! occupations reveals a complex net- work of interest which reaches, either! directly or indirectly, practically every population group in the state. Heavy Investment Sugar companies are vitally concerned con-cerned over a situation that reduces their volume of business more than half in six or seven years. Since a sugar factory represents an invest-,, ment of from one to two million dollars, the closing down or removal of factories in sev-n years is nothing short of a financial jar. A sugar factory should operate 90 to 123 days j in order to use the equipment with; moderate efficiency. Several factories did not turn a w-heel ir. 1926, 1927, or: 192S. Most of the factories which did' operate were in actual use only from' 30 to 60 days. Such conditions will ' kill any industry in a short time. ! Every taxpayer in Utah is affected1 at once by the loss of assessable capital. cap-ital. Whenever a siiL-ar factory in a community erases to operate it must a' once be restored to activity, or its! early removal is inevitable. Utnh has recently lest factories to Montana, to South Dakota, and to XVaska. c-"l is on ihe rorr of los'ng more. Such' loss means one of two things to the rural community: Either (11 an increase in-crease in tiie tax rate on other urn,'-' erties. or (21 a reduc'ion in tho vol-' nine of public works. One of Utah's, chief concerns is the finding of pe.s-; sible new sources of taxes. With all that can be done regarding mines, |