EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 303 



SUGAR BEETS IX MICHIGAN IX 1897 



BY C. D. SMITH. DIRECTOR, AND R. C. ICEDZIE. CHEMIST. 



Bulletin 150. — Farm Department. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The effort to supply our people from the products of our own soil with 

 so necessary a food material as sugar, now largely imported from other 

 countries, cannot fail to be a matter of deep interest to every person inter- 

 ested in the welfare of the State. Why this country should, year after 

 year, send abroad $100,000,000 in gold to pay for a crop that can be suc- 

 cessfully raised on our own soil and manufactured by our own people, 

 has never been satisfactorily answered. The hesitancy to embark in 

 sugar making has hinged upon the question whether our soil and climate 

 are capable of producing sugar beets fit for the factory. It is mainly 

 to settle this question, so far as Michigan is concerned, that the present 

 investigation has been undertaken. The recent legislation in our State 

 offering a bounty on sugar made from beets grown in this State has 

 awakened additional interest among our farmers. 



DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRY. 



In times of industrial depression, such as the one through which we 

 have lately passed, what the country especially needs is diversified 

 industry, so that the glut of one product shall not cause a stagnation of 

 others. This is especially true in agriculture. In the northern states 

 the three cash crops have been wheat, meat and wool; but wheat has led 

 the industrial race, and the price of wheat has been the business bar- 

 ometer for farmers. The introduction of a new "cash crop" to diversify 

 the old system of rotation, and stop the impoverishing tendency of con- 

 tinuous exportation of grain, is full of promise to the farmer, and gives 

 tokens of prosperity to the business public. 



The Honorable Secretary of Agriculture, with an eye that takes in 

 the whole sweep of industrial pursuits, has given a powerful impulse to 

 this industry of national importance. By freely furnishing beet seed of 

 the highest quality to such sections of the country as appear to be 



