LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 259 



■variety of wheat that has yielded well, had a good, stiff straw, was hardy and. 

 •quite free from the ravages of insects, fails to retain those qualities, and 

 forces the farmer to change to some other variety. Even this year many of 

 our best farmers have been trying to obtain something to take the place of 

 the Fultz wheat, once so popular. What an advantage then if an experi- 

 mental farm could have been located in southwestern Michigan, which could 

 have tested and secured for distribution a variety to take the place of the one 

 now in use. and one which we would have been perfectly safe in adopting, as 

 it would have been grown in a like climate and soil. The request of our agri- 

 culturists for appropriations to advance our cause is a wise and very reason- 

 able one. No other nation of prominence is as niggardly in this respect as 

 ours. In 187?, France appropriated for the support of agriculture and com- 

 merce, 820,000,000; Russia, for agriculture and public lands, 115,000,000: 

 Austria and Hungary, for agriculture alone, S5, 500, 000; Great Britain, 

 $800,000; Sweden, $650,000; the United States for the same year, only 

 $174,686. Thus it will be seen, that Russia, our greatest competitor in the 

 markets of the world for agricultural products, spends annually seventy times 

 as much as we do; and little Sweden three times as much as this great nation 

 does for the support of the industry upon which its prosperity and perpetuity 

 depends. 



To prove my position and show what can be accomplished by governmental 

 aid, and continued and careful experiments, I have but to call your attention 

 to the history of the beet sugar industry of Prance, about the middle of the 

 eighteenth century. Marggraf, an apothecary in Berlin drew attention to the 

 sugar contained in beets, but Achard, the Prussian chemist, was the first who 

 was tolerably successful in extracting it. Still, as only two or three per cent 

 of sugar was obtained, the product did not pay the cost. In this extremity 

 the French nation wisely came to the rescue, placed a protective duty on sugar, 

 offered a bonus to those who would engage in the cultivation of the beet, and 

 at once commenced to experiment to overcome the obstacles that confronted 

 them, and did not cease their efforts until they succeeded. 



The expense incurred has been amply repaid, as France produces annually 

 about 450,000 tons of beet sugar, or 900,000,000 pounds. Besides the refuse 

 used for provender and the alcohol extracted pays the cost of manufacture and 

 brings to the laborers of France about $50,000,000 annually. It gives profit- 

 able employment to thousands of her subjects, and makes her population 

 largely agricultural. Herein lies her strength and prosperity. It saved the 

 nation from bankruptcy ; has enabled them to prosper under the enormous war 

 debt, and to survive the loss of their vineyards, and had as much to do with 

 her becoming a republic as any one cause. There is something in the occu- 

 pation of the husbandman which creates in the breast of those engaged in it 

 a desire for freedom and a supreme contempt for royalty ; and, Mr. Chairman, 

 I have no fears for the perpetuity of our republican institutions as long as agri- 

 culture is the principal occupation of our people, as long as it is fostered and 

 encouraged, and the majority of our population own the soil and till it. While 

 this is not a treatise on sugar or its production still I desire to call your atten- 

 tion to its great importance. The consumption of sugar has become enor- 

 mous. It is estimated that the United States consumes 40 pounds per capita. 

 Making a yearly consumption of 1,000,000 tons, or 2,000,000,000 pounds; 

 nine-tenths of which is imported at a cost of over $100,000,000, all of which 

 ought to and could be produced at home. It is estimated that two per cent of 

 the acreage devoted to corn would, if cultivated to sugar cane, produce all the 



