MICHIGAN LIVE STOCK IN 1900. 



383 



result of whieh indicates that from the manufacturer's standpoint 

 nothing needed by sugar factories is lacking. 



There yet remains to complete the list of sup])lies for sugar making the 

 disposition of the farmer to raise the crop in quantity sufficient to supply 

 the factories. The farmers of the State are for the most part either 

 native-born American citizens or natives of Canada. They are accustomed 

 to the growing of cereals on relatively large scale and not to that system 

 of agriculture in which the application of a large amount of labor to a 

 large area is involved. Repeated failure of accustomed crops has 

 made them ready to welcome any new one that gave promise of adequate 

 returns for the labor expended upon it. So great had become the agri- 

 cultural depression due to successive failures of wheat and other crops 

 that agents of the Canadian government and of the great railroad com- 

 panies owning land in the Dakotas and states adjoining have succeeded, 

 through the activty of shrewd agents permanently located at various 

 points in the State, in securing a large migration of our farming 

 population westward. There exists in Michigan today an organized 

 emigration department which has succeeded since the beginning of 1900 

 in removing from Michigan several hundred people, chiefly tenants. If 

 sugar beets bade fair to be a profitable crop the farmers were in the 

 right condition of mind and experience to welcome it. 



The Michigan Sugar Company-, at Bay City, was the first to build a 

 factory, their first campaign being in 1898. The exceptionally excellent 

 results obtained at Saginaw in 1897 by Higgins & Lenders attracted the 

 attention of capitalists to the advantages offered by the Saginaw Valley 

 to beet-growers and sugar-makers. The Michigan Sugar Company was 

 fortunate in having, as patrons, an agricultural community composed 

 largely of Germans and Hollanders, many of them accustomed to raising 

 beets in their native homes. They were therefore intelligent in their 

 methods, and were at the same time working on a soil adapted to the 

 business. The season of 1898 was in most respects favorable, although 

 the fall was excessively wet, making harvesting difficult, unpleasant 

 and expensive. The factory secured nearly all of its full complement of 

 acreage, the farmers entered into the care of the crop enthusiastically, 

 the harvest was abundant, and the financial returns to the farmer ex- 

 ceedingly satisfactory. I give here, by way of illustration, the results 

 obtained by several farmers about that factory in 1898: 



G. Hine 



8. F. Savles.. 

 J. F. Hoes.... 

 John .Tones . . 

 J. McKinney. 



J. W. Mcintosh. 

 Thomas Handv . 

 C. B. rhatliehi.. 

 T. F. Shepard... 

 F.E. Webster... 



Name. 



Profit. 



$23 34 

 21 22 

 57 08 

 45 83 

 52 14 



31 60 



25 71 



26 43 

 28 61 

 18 86 



