378 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



fore. Tlie clean culture and thorough tillage required for a crop of 

 Iteets explain the benefits. 



WHA-T OF THE FUTURE FOR BEET SUGAR? 



^Vith l.'i factories in operation this year and five more in process 

 of prei»aiation for the campaign of 1902, capable of working 0,000 tons 

 of beets a day. with news almost every week of a new factory to be built 

 in the near future, with an investment of nearly .i?l(), (100,000 in build- 

 ings and equipment, with the farmers alive to the value of this new 

 crop, it would seem that the beet sugar industry was placed on a firm 

 foundation in ^[ichigan. If left undisturbed there is no question about 

 its permanency. There are 1*0 states interested in sugar production to 

 a greater or less extent in our country. 



THE LITILE CLOUD OF MENACE. 



The onlv danger that seems to threaten this infant industrv is the 

 etlort to change our tariff so as to permit the importation of raw sugar 

 free of duty. It is already announced that Congress will be asked to 

 remove the duty from raw sugar grown in Cuba and allow its free im- 

 portation the same as is now done with our insular possessions. If raw 

 sugar is admitted free while a tax is retained on refined sugar, our 

 people will be j)laced at the mercy of the sugar trust. Casting an eye 

 over the tropical Atlantic one might exclaim with the servant of the 

 ancient prophet, "Behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea. 

 like a man's hand,'' and this cloud, si)ringing over Cuba, fortells a com- 

 ing storm that may bring financial ruin to sugar growing north and 

 south. 



The sugar trust formerly dictated prices for refined sugar in every 

 city and village of our land. But sugar i)roduction at home has crijtplcd 

 their ])Ower, and threatens to wi}>e it out. Hence the effort to decry 

 beet sugar and make our people think that cane sugar alone is fit for 

 use. Yet the larger part of the sugar of the sugar trust is made from 

 beet sugar imported from Phirope. As Mr. Oxnard forcibly says "the 

 question to be decided is whether the sugar trust or the beet sugar 

 peojjle shall stay in the field." The free importation of raw sugar will 

 close every beet sugar factory east of the Rockies. This battle will be 

 fought out in the next Congress over a revision of tariff on sugar. If 

 the tarift" is revised in the interests of the sugar trusts, then the mil- 

 lions of dollars expended for factories and e(iuipnients will only be 

 wasted and the new and promising industry, so full of promise to our 

 farmers, will become a byword and reproach. And yet Mr. Have- 

 meyer, president of the sugar trust, coolly announces, "Congress will 

 give us the tariff we want." Willett & Gray's Sugar Trade Journal for 

 August 1, 1901, comes out squarely for free raw sugar from Cuba. 



It will be wise for manufacturers, farmers and all who a])preciate the 

 prosperity that clusters around every beet sugar factory in our State 

 to begin a i)olitical campaign that shall compel Congress to give us a 

 tariff in the interests of our people, ignoring the demands of the sugar 

 trust. Our members of Congress should not be left in doubt about the 

 demands of our people on this subject. The time to inaugurate such a 

 campaign is xowl and it should end only with victory I 



