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Show SUGRR BEETS THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. In response to n resolution of inquiry in-quiry which passed the Senate April 8, Secretary Wi'soi has forwarded a report on' the h,cct-sugar industry in the United States. This report contains ,an interesting summary of facts "and figures relating to this industry. in-dustry. In 1896 there .ycrc 6 bect-sugar factories in operation and one building, build-ing, having altogether a capacity for slicing 4,000 tons of beets daily. In 1908 there were 64 factories, with a total capacity of 50,000 tons of beets daily more than twelve-fold increase. in-crease. From 1898 to 1906 our production of beet sugar grew froim 36,000 tons to 484,00, an increase of more than thirteen fold in eight years. In 1896 41,000, acres of beets were harvested ; in 1906 376,000 acres, ot more than nine times as great an arott. The price of beats, like prices of other farm crops, has risen steadily In 1896 the factories paid $4.10 per ton; now they have to pay $5-35 In 1898 the farmers had 364,000 tons of beets to sell to the factories, for which they received $1,564,000. Tn 1906, just eight years later, they had 4, 236,000 tons of beets to sell, and received for them $21,604,0001 twclvc-fo'd increase in beets and ;. fourtccn-fold increase in money returns. re-turns. The total amount paid out by factories fac-tories for beets during the past twelve vcars amounts to $121,000,000. The total capital invested in beet-sugar beet-sugar plants in this country is about $70,000,000, and this docs not include investments made by factory owners in farm lands, irrigation works, etc Among other things the Senate called on the Secretary of Agriculture Agricul-ture to state how much ibect sugar can be produced in the United States. The Secretary replies that we have demonstrated conditions of soil and limatc favorable to beet cu'turc in area of at least 274 million acres, and that it will only take one acre on' of every 200 of this to produce all the sugar we now import from foreign sources. . Ho estimates ''that if the sugar beet wcr.c grown throughout those portions of the United States adapted adapt-ed by nature and with the aid of irrigation to its culture, with a system sys-tem of rotation including the cultivation cultiva-tion of the beet every fourth year, 15 million tons of beet sugar could l)c produced in the United 'Statesman-nualiy, 'Statesman-nualiy, or more than the wor'd's total production of sugar at the present time." It appears from this report thai the people of European countries have to pay a good deal more for their sugar than we do. For the years 1904-1907 the average retail price of lump sugar in Naples and Milan was 1354 cents per pound, in Amsterdam 9.4 cents, in Madrid nearly 9 cents, in Stockholm 7yi cents, in Vienna and Budapest 7J4 cents, in Paris 6J4 cents, in Dresden and Bremen nearly 6 cents, and in Brussels stf cents. The prices given arc for lump sugar sug-ar because that is the grade most uniformly quoted in the European 5 statistics. This grade appears to be much more generally consumed than 1 granulated iii most countries of Con- 1 tincntal Europe. ' j The Brussc's Sugar Convention, ! which went into effect September 1. 1903, caused a radical reduction of the price of sugar in many European Jj countries. In Belgium the fall i 1 1 the retail price was zVa cents per 1 pounl, in the German cities Y cent?, and in Austria-Hungary iJ4 cents. The Secretary gives a flattering account ac-count of the progress made in dev- eloping the beet-sugar industry, and takes a very cheerful view of its fut- "" .a urc prospects. He concedes that " some failures -occurred among the earlier factories, but shows that the , later factories have been quite uniformly uni-formly successful. He says that wherever factories have been successfully success-fully operated ttfic values of farm lands have risen very decidedly, especially es-pecially lands under irrigation in the far West. He says beet culture improves im-proves the land and educates the1 farmer. The operation of a factory ( leads to the investment of capital in nyuiy industries more or less related to beet-sugar production. The byproducts by-products pulp and molasses arc fed to stock, and their use has large- ' ly increased the amount of live stock kept and fed in most factory districts. Beet-sugar factories are now in successful operation in 16 States. Colorado loads all other States cu-gaged cu-gaged in the industry, having 16 factories. fac-tories. In 1907 these produced 169.- 000 tons of sugar, or enough, if k had been passed around, to give nil the people in the United States 4 1 ounds apiece California and Michigan follow Colorado at a respectful distance in the race for second placfc. Michigan has the same number of factories as Colorado, but their product is considerably con-siderably smaller. California has on ( ly 9 plants, but some of the latter arc very large. From year to year I the production of sugar is about the I same in the two States. Utah has 5 factories and they are rtrong producers. Idaho and Wisconsin Wis-consin follow with 4 each, and there arc 10 States with 1 factory each. The most eastern factory is that at Lyons, N. P. Hamilton City, Cal., I has the most western factory, Los I Alamitos, Cal., the most southern, I and B'llings, Mont., the most north- Ii. crn- I J The largest factory in the United States, and one of the largest in the 1 world, is the one at Sprcckcls, Cal., which is able to slice 3,000 tons of beets in a day, or 100 carloads of 30 tons each. The oldest successful factory :n , the United States is the one at Al-tf Al-tf I varado Cal., which was established 1 in 1879, and has been making beet f sugar for thirty years. |
