OCR Text |
Show THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. A comprehensive report has just been made on the beet-sugar Industry of tho United States by Charles F. Saylor, a special expert of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Senate has ordered or-dered 110,000 copies of it printed. It is a voluminous and valuable document, and shows up all tho facts bearing upon the industry. Mr. Saylor pleads especially for tho direction of effort to the end of producing pro-ducing a greater yield of sugar-beets per acre. The yield In this country does not avcrago above eight to nino tons per acre, whereas in Germany the average is thirteen tons per acre. He urges that the American farmer will be able with proper culture to grow fifteen fif-teen tons per acre in the rainy portions of the country, and seventeen tons In tho .Irrigation districts, which is a handsomo recognition of the superiority superior-ity of tho so-called arid region in this business. A strong showing is made of the additional ad-ditional profits which would accrue In tho Increase of the average yield per acre of the beets; it is certainly something some-thing of tho highest practical Interest to bond attention lo this end. Tho difference dif-ference between eight or nine tons an acre, and the forty tons which Mr. Saylor considers practicable on good soli is the dlfferenco between a struggle to make the Industry pay, and the triumph tri-umph of Isklll well directed toward tho making of wealth. And, proceeding in the same vein, ho calls attention to the desirability of getting tho utmost sugar extraction posslblo from tho beets. Ho shows that the average extraction of sugar from tho beets by tho factories of tho United States is about 11 per cent of the weight of the beets; and then ho reckons up how much greater the profits would be In tho extraction of 1 per cent more, 2 per cent, and so on. Tho report is well calculated to stir up emulation all along the line In this Industry, from tho beot-grower to tho manufacturer, and the circulation of the report, as proposed by tho Senate, cannot fall to result In great good. |