380 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY IN MICHIGAN, 1900. 



THE KELATIOX OF THE MANUFACTURER OF BEET SUGAR TO FARMERS AND 



THE LABORING CLASS IN MICHIGAN. 



C. D. SMITH, M. S., DIKECTOK MICHIGAN STATE EXPERIMENT STATION. 



As early as 1890 and 1891 the Experiment Station of the Michigan 

 Agricultural College had distributed sugar beet seed, which it had im- 

 ported directly from (lermauy, among farmers scattered well over the 

 State. The analyses of the beets had shown that roots containing a high 

 per cent of sugar could be grown in all parts of the State south of a 

 line drawn east and west through the southern boundaries of Manistee 

 and Iosco counties. After that year, and up to the beginning of 1897, 

 there had been frequent failures in the wheat crop and in the fruit crop 

 along the western borders of the State, two of the principal sources of 

 income to the agriculturists. Owing to drouths and depredation of 

 insects the clover crop had partially or, in some sections, wholly failed. 

 There was for these reasons an active demand among farmers for some 

 new crop that should be profitable. 



The United States Department of Agriculture sent to the Michigan 

 Exjieriment Station, early in 1897, a considerable amount of beet seed, 

 which it was my duty to judiciously distribute to still further determine 

 the best localities for growing beets on a commercial scale. The seed 

 was distributed and the results of the analyses of the products of the 

 various counties are reported on page 149 of bulletin 150 of the Michi- 

 gan Experiment Station, which is hereto attached as part of this 

 statement. Your attention is respectfully called to the history of the 

 beets grown by Higgins & Lenders, and others in Saginaw county, in 

 1897, as reported on page 137 of this bulletin. You will note the high 

 per cent of sugar and the most excellent, and occasionally incredible, 

 yield per acre, remembering that the yields were in many cases largely 

 ^^stimated, tliouijh estimated from weights and measurements. 



This work in Saginaw was no inconspicuous factor in determining the 

 location of the first factory to be erected in the State, that of the Michi- 

 gan Sugar Company, at Bay City, fourteen miles north of Saginaw, and 

 on Saginaw Bay. 



Beet seed was distributed again in 1898, and, later, in 1899, to selected 

 farmers widely scattered over the State. In both these years the 

 beets were crown in plots larcer than a quarter of an acre each. The 

 results of the work for the three vears are given in tlu^ following table: 



