:Mi(Hir;AX beet sugar 39D 



enormous pioportions, no doubt cutting lieavily into the poik industry. 

 Today it has become a table necessity, and the amount of it eaten every 

 year is increasing at a rate out of all projiortion to other foods. Next 

 to the English the Americans are the greatest of all consumers of 

 sugar, and the total of our purchases yearly is far greater than that of 

 anv other nation. We eat over 2.0(10.(10(1 tons a vear, or nearly 63 

 pounds of every man, woman, and child in the country. That means 

 one and one-fifth pounds a week. Twenty years ago the consumption 

 was only :^S pounds annually for every person— certainly a striking 

 evidence of the growing use of sugar. It is said that the Americans 

 are the greatest eaters of sugar in the world. The English consume 

 a greater (juantity — over 8t) pounds per capita — but much of it goes 

 into tine marmalades, j(^llies, and so on for expoi-tation purposes. After 

 the Americans, the Danish and Swiss are the greatest sugar eaters, 

 and then in order come the Dutch, the French (with oO pounds a year 

 for each person), the Germans, and the Swedes. The southern peoples 

 of Europe, the Italians. Spanish, (Irecians, and others are very light 

 consumers of sugar, partly because they have not the wealth of the 

 northern nations, and partly because they live in a warm climate where 

 they do not need heat-producing foods. Generally si)eaking, sugar is 

 one of the indices of national progressiveness; the more enterprising-^ 

 and energetic a people, the more sugar they eat. 



Sugar has not risen to its present prominence among commodities 

 without working great changes in agricultural conditions, even to the 

 extent of causing wars, for commercial economists show that the Span- 

 ish-American war grew directly out of the conliict for supremacy be- 

 tween the sugar beet growers of Germany and the cane sugar growers 

 of Cuba, Porto Ivico and the Philippines. The wonderful success of 

 science and brains applied to sugar ])roduction in Euroi)e enabled the 

 Gernums to undersell the (Jubans, thereby causing the discontent and 

 hardship which finally led to the Cuban insurrection against Spain 

 and the subsequent interference of the United States. Cane sugar and 

 beet sugai' are exa<'tly the same in composition, in appearance, and in 

 taste, but the struggle between the growers of these two great sources 

 of production has not yet seen its conclusion. A comparatively few 

 years ago beet sugar was almost unknown; the world's sweets came 

 entir<'ly from the cane, and the semi-tro|)i(iil countries whei-e cane 

 grew luost luxuiianlly earned all the profits of the industry. Today, 

 more than half of the world's sugar is made from beets. The nortlu-rn 

 races have again outstrijtped the southern races. It is probable that 

 many Auiericans. thinkiug they are using sugar from the cane of Cuba 

 and Louisiana, are in reality eating sugar from the beets of Gerniany. 

 or (.'alifornia, or Michigan. 



WHV DO VVK IMPORT SUGAR? 



Sugar is one of the few great commodities in the production of which 

 the I'niled States is weak and dependent. In almost all of the great 

 necessaries of life — food, chtthing, fuel, and shelter — the country is 

 more than self-supjjorting, but in the matter of sugar we are largely 

 dependent on foreign sup](lies. And our sugar bill is the largest by far 

 of any of our foreign accounts — twice that of coffee, which stands next 



