376 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



TIk' inlluonco of lliis law was inarkod. Factory aftor factory si»ran<j: 

 lip ill our State, prodiuiii^ s^ii^ar of jj;reat excel lonce, competiii}^ at 

 once with sugars imported from abroad, wliellier produced from sugar 

 cane or sugar beet. These factories have increased in number till 

 18 factories in opei'aliou or iu process of cousirnction show that a new 

 industry has deyeloped in our i^tate. lis benetits are not contined to 

 the factory, but extend to the farm. Unlike lumbering and mining, its 

 blessing oyerllows and sweetens eyery tield of toil. It is a cash crop 

 and the money in large i)art flows into the ])ocket of the farmer instead 

 of being absorbed by some syndicate in Boston or 2sew Yoik. Even 

 the price of common labor is enhanced, wages are not only higher but 

 paid in better form; has changed from dicker to dollars. The boy be- 

 tween 14 and 18, on the uncertain footing: between boy and man, drift- 

 ing toward the pessimistic thought "the world has no use for me,'' now 

 flnds abundant work in caring for this new crop. An instructive lesson 

 may be read by witnessing the behayior of a crowd of juveniles as they 

 receiye their weekly pay for weeding beets. Some of the tots are so 

 small that their chin hardly reaches the level of the paying clerk's 

 desk, but each receives his wages and marches tyflt, a capitalist. I quote 

 a notice of such scene in Lansing, July 5. 



PAID OFF. 



"There was a novel scene at the office of the Lansing Sugar Com- 

 pany Monday evening when for three hours men, women and children 

 waited their turn and then passed to the window and received their 

 pay for weeding beets. Seyeral hundred persons were paid off. At one 

 window the checks given by the foreman w-ere examined and at the 

 next window the enyelopes were handed out. A good system for the 

 paying off is employed, and everything w-ent olf like clock work. Up- 

 wards of 12,000 was paid out. Every Monday the weeders are paid off 

 by these contractors. It is not unusual for a boy not more than 14 

 years of age to earn .f 1.25 per day." 



One earnest boy as he grasped his week's pay amounting to several 

 dollars, remarked "this will help me to pay my way through college." 

 Some persons lament the degradation of our boys to so menial a work, 

 but the boy with a few dollars in his pocket, earned by his own efforts, 

 is different from the hoodlum in the street. He has thereby taken a 

 long step towards manhood. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1897. 



The interest aroused in the beet sugar industry created a demand 

 in hundreds o^ communities to know whether their soil and climate 

 would produce sugar beets fit for the factory. This threw a large 

 amount of work upon the Experiment Station of the college. Beet 

 seeds were wanted for trial on hundreds of farms in widely scattered 

 localities, instruction was sought on methods of planting and cultivat- 

 ing the crop and analysis of the beets thus raised to determine the 

 final result. 



The department of agriculture contributed a generous amount of 

 beet seed of the best yarieties and contributed effectively to the suc- 

 cess of the effort. In carrying on the beet sugar campaign of 1897 great 



