48 Transactions op the 



people has been most earnestly called to the feasibility and importance 

 of the production of the sugar beet in our State and the manufacture 

 of sugar therefrom. So important have we deemed this subject that we 

 have returned to and repeated our recommendations year after year, and 

 have from time to time shown by carefully compiled statistics the amount 

 of gold California was annually exporting in return for sugar imported. 



Within the last seven years — and since we first called attention to this 

 industry and demonstrated its practicability in California — we have paid 

 for imported sugars and molass.es over thirty-four millions of dollars. 

 In the light of this fact we are able to place some esrimaie upon the 

 importance of the successful initiation of this industry in our State 

 during the past year upon a scale that leaves no doubt as to its entire suc- 

 cess in every particular. We may now look forward with certainty to 

 the time, and that not far distant, when we shall be able to produce all 

 the sugar and molasses we shall need for home consumption, and we see 

 no reason why we may not become exporters. Thus, by the addition of 

 a single new industry we shall save for distribution among our own 

 people, and mostly among the laboring class, five millions of dollars a 

 year. 



Other and still greater advantages may be looked for as a consequence 

 of this new industry. It has been demonstrated that the manufacture 

 of sugar from the beet contributes greatly to increase the other pro- 

 ducts of the soil. The extraction of the saccharine matter deprives the 

 root of only a part of its elements. The pulp and foliage of the beet 

 supplies for animals an abundance of food, and the returns of the sugar 

 works will enable them to produce manures which will indefinitely 

 increase the fertility of the soil. In a single province of France, where 

 the product of wheat before the introduction of this industry was but 

 nine hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred and seventy-three 

 bushels, and the number of cattle seven hundred, a few years after its 

 introduction the wheat product had increased to one million one hundred 

 and fifty-eight thousand two hundred and fifty-six bushels, and the 

 number of cattle to one hundred and ten thousand five hundred. 



In this connection we would suggest that experience in France, Cer- 

 many. and other beet sugar countries, has proven that the best land for 

 this purpose is that which will produce the best wheat or secretes the 

 greatest amount of saccharine matter in the grape. Many sections of 

 this State, where the land has been for many years subjected to an 

 annual cropping of grain, and is for this crop nearly exhausted, are as 

 well adapted to the production of the sugar beet as the richest alluvial 

 bottoms. The beets on such lands, will not grow so large, ami the pro- 

 duct of the root j)er acre will be less in tons; but the beets will be 

 sweeter, and the number of pounds of sugar per acre will be greater. 



We would also suggest the practicability and propriety of the organi- 

 zation of sugar companies among our farmers, and the manufacture of 

 sugar on a scale suited to the means and facilities of the company. One 

 hundred thousand, or fifty thousand, or twenty-five thousand dollars are 

 not necessary to a successful beginning. On the contrary, small factories 

 conducted on the cooperative plan and located in the immediate viciuitj* 

 of those interested in them, are generally more economically managed 

 and pay greater dividends on the capital invested. Farmers should not 

 wait tor capitalists to monopolize the profits of this industry. Cood 

 lands, the cooperation and intelligent direction of labor, with a small 

 amount of ready money with which to put up buildings and purchase 

 machinery are all the elements that are necessary for the successful and 



