108 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



4. The attempts that have been made to push it into localities that 

 are not suitable. 



Now tonight I will probably not have time to do more than show you 

 the slides illustrating the lecture, so I will take time to say a few words 

 here. A great deal of inquiry has been made with regard to the effect 

 of our new possessions upon the sugar industry of this country. Let- 

 ters are referred to me nearly every day by the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, coming from persons all over the* country, asking what will be 

 the effect upon the sugar beet industry if this country acquires Porto 

 Rico, Cuba and the Philippines. Our great tendency has been hereto- 

 fore to import the greater part of our sugar supply because sugar has 

 been offered to us so cheaply that it has been more economical to buy 

 than it has been to raise it ourselves. And this iron rule will obtain 

 in the future as it has in the past, for if sugar can be put down here 

 cheaper than it can be made here, we will not raise it. So we must look 

 forward before we can predicate the future. A few years ago the sugar 

 made from sugar cane was greater than that manufactured from 

 sugar beet. We thought of sugar almost exclusively as the product 

 of sugar cane. At the present time, however, the amount of sugar 

 made from the sugar beet is far larger than that made from sugar cane. 

 The entire amount of sugar made and consumed in the world aggre- 

 gated eight million tons, five million tons of which is made from the 

 sugar beet, while from the sugar cane, the maple tree, the palm, etc., 

 the remaining three million tons are manufactured. Thus we see the 

 beet is the great sugar producing agent of the world. And then, too, 

 w^hat a wonderful influence has this industry had upon agriculture; 

 and if it were to disai)pear today, the great service it has rendered to 

 agriculture would far more than compensate for the trouble and ex- 

 pense of its promotion. You have doubtless heard of the establishment 

 of training schools designed to train the young in the art of agricul- 

 ture. Xow, if you want the best training school in the world for the 

 teaching of agriculture, grow beets and you will teach the people the 

 highest principles to be learned in that respect. I have spent a great 

 deal of time in looking at this question in its various phases as pre- 

 sented in other countries and the influence which this cultivation has 

 had on other forms of agriculture. Fifty years ago in northern FraiK-e 

 the average yield of wheat was only 15 bushels to the acre, while now 

 the average yield is 30 bushels to the acre, and that, too, because the 

 art of beet growing has taught the people there the art of agriculture. 

 This art is most highly developed when it increases the crop without 

 perceptibly diminishing the fertilizer of the soil. So that if the culti- 

 vation of the sugar beet has never done anything else, it has at least 

 advanced agriculture. 



^A'hat I want to say is this: We have here a rapidly growing country. 

 The time is not far distant when the United States will have a i)opula- 

 tion of one hundred million souls, and it will make us the strongest 

 nation in the world in touch with each other. Other nations, like. Rus- 

 sia, etc., may have a larger number of persons nominally under one 

 central government, but really consisting of scattered peoples and not 

 in sympathy w^tih each other or the central government. I say then the 

 time is not far distant when we will see this country the most populous 

 and most powerful nation in the world, for the power of a nation is in 



