SUGAR BEET INVESTIGATIONS. 



^ PART I. FIELD WORK. 



I. General Remarks on Sugar Beet Cultivation. 



By J. L. Stone. 



The successful manufacturing of sugar from the beet root in America 

 is no longer in doubt. That question has passed the experimental 

 stage. It has been thoroughly demonstrated that American enter- 

 prise can secure the necessary skill and machinery either by importa- 

 tion or home production, to successfully manufacture from beets a high 

 grade of sugar. 



A beet sugar factory, however, without an abundant supply of good 

 beets is sure to be a financial failure. No matter how well planned, 

 nor how carefully constructed the factory is, nor how thoroughly 

 informed and skillful in all the intricate processes of sugar making the 

 management may be, if the farmers cannot or will not produce the 

 beets to profitably employ the machinery and skill provided, the enter- 

 prise must languish. Early efforts to introduce the beet sugar 

 industry into America failed for want of beets rather than for want 

 of knowledge and skill in the manufacture of sugar. A number of the 

 factories now in successful operation in this country passed through 

 several "campaigns" before the farmers had become sufficiently inter- 

 ested and skillful to produce a sufficient quantity of good beets to 

 enable the factories to be operated at a profit. At the present time 

 these same factories are unable to handle all the beets that the farmers 

 of their localities desire to grow. It has been demonstrated that beets 

 sufficiently rich in sugar for profitable manufacture can be produced in 

 large quantities in a number of our western states. That the yield per 

 acre is sufficiently large to make the growing of the beets profitable at 

 the price paid, is proven by the fact that the older factories, in some 

 cases, find it necessary to limit the area the farmers are permitted to 

 grow. The farmers in the vicinity of these factories have been pros- 

 perous through the recent hard times and land values have advanced; 

 while over the country in general land has declined. 



Investigations conducted in New York by this Station during the 

 past season (1897) seem to indicate that the state is not behind any of 



