Many growers formerly received as high as $75 and some $100 per acre for their beets, these high results depending upon the superior quality of the land and the superior skill of the one producing the beets. If a farmer has poor land or is an unthrifty farmer, he is not in a position to expect much in planting any kind of crop. These statements are sufficient to give a farmer who is experienced in all other kinds of crops a fair insight into the situation.
Conditions in the sugar marts of the world resulting from the World War have naturally caused a general dislocation in the beet-sugar field also, where unusually high prices obtain, and under present conditions the future can not be forecast with any degree of accuracy, but the outlook for the producer is assuring.
There are indirect benefits in sugar-beet growing that the farmer must take into consid eration, along with the direct, as follows: He learns that sugar-beets are a very valuable crop to grow for his stock. It is estimated that they are worth two-thirds as much for feeding as for production of sugar. They may enter into a food ration for any kind of stock. A normal acre of sugar-beets furnishes about 2,000 pounds of digestible matter in form of the tops and leaves removed before beets are de livered at the factory. An average acre of corn ensilage contains about 3,600 pounds of di gestible matter. Therefore, besides getting a good cash return for his beets the farmer gets from each acre of beets the equivalent of one half an acre of ensilage.
The high cultivation that must be given to the land through deep plowing, thorough har rowing and constant weeding and cultivating finally makes the land of superior quality for any purpose. It will grow much more and bet ter corn or wheat, and at a less expense, on account of the absence of weeds and grass. Finally, through rotation, other fields are brought under this high state of cultivation, until the whole farm is at its best condition of soil fertility and productiveness.
The method that has brought this about serves as an object-lesson to the farmer and the farming neighborhood. A better cultiva tion will prevail, and the science of farming will become several degrees higher on account of experience in sugar-beet cultivation.
After the beets are delivered to the fac tory, and the sugar has been extracted, it is found that the pulp (which will amount to 50 per cent in weight of the beets worked) is almost as valuable for feeding purposes as the original beets themselves. It is a very cheap feed and sells for 50 to 75 cents per ton. It enters naturally and profitably into the food rations of all kinds of stock. It is especially valuable for steers and lambs, but reaches its highest use as animal food when fed to the dairy cow. The farmers in the neighborhood of a beet-sugar factory feed large quantities of it. They appreciate its nutritive and sanitary value. Pulp feeding gives an impetus to animal industry of all kinds. It offers a stimulus to the establishment of butter and cheese fac tories, to the erection of feeding-pens and to the whole stock-feeding industry. Its use is a
strong reason for establishing the industry.
The beet-sugar industry opens up at once a large demand for labor, not only in the factory itself, but on the farm. It is one of the things in which the farmer can invest with the assur ance that he has a sure market and a fixed price for his crop to begin with.
Benefits to Other The estab lishment of a beet-sugar factory opens up not only a large field for the employment of labor, but also a field for the employment of capital. It becomes at once a market for considerable crude material to be. used in conducting the business. First and most important it furnishes a market for the beets. Then the factory is a large consumer of coal, and as the factories are often established in communities having local coal fields they become at once local markets for a local product. The amount of coal neces sary to work up a certain amount of beets is generally computed at about 20 per cent by weight, or, in case of an ordinary factory of 1,000 tons capacity, about 200 tons of coal per day, or 20,000 tons for a full campaign of 100 days. A factory also consumes a large amount of lime rock, which of necessity must also be a local product. It usually consumes lime rock to the extent of about 8 per cent of the crude weight of beets worked, which in the case of a 1,000-ton factory would be 80 tons of lime rock per day, or 8,000 tons for the campaign. It consumes about one-tenth as much coke as lime, or about 1,000 tons during a campaign.
The establishment of a factory in a commu nity necessitates considerable transportation of crude products — beets, coal and lime rock to the factory, and in carrying the finished prod uct to the market. It stimulates banking and almost all kinds of mercantile business through out the community.
The total expenditure for beets, manufac turing and transportation by the factory is not far from $100 per acre of beets harvested, most of which is disbursed in local channels and which furnishes one of the best means of an intensification of economical activities in rural communities.
The Future of the The present consumption of sugar in the United States is 8,500,000,000 pounds of which beet and Louisi ana cane sugar furnish about 25 per cent, 27 per cent comes from our insular possessions and 48 per cent comes from foreign countries, mostly from Cuba.
It has been the ambition of those encourag ing the beet-sugar industry to establish factories enough at least to avoid this foreign importa tion. Making due allowance for failure of fac tories to reach in actual production their full capacity under ideal conditions, it would require 160 factories having a daily capacity of 1,000 tons of beets to produce the sugar imported, or a sufficient number of cane-sugar factories to produce an equal amount of sugar. To build and equip these factories will require an ex penditure of $250,000,000 in labor, building ma terials and machinery. The annual require ments of these will be as follows: