FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 95 



large to permit of profitable manufacture of crystallized sugar, atten- 

 tion was turned to tlie sugar beet as a more promising material. 



SUGAR BEETS. 



Ten years ago 800 kilograms of the seeds of the best known sugar 

 beets were imported from Europe for trial in this State. This included 

 200 kilograms each of the four most highly prized sugar beets culti- 

 vated in Europe, viz.: Klein Wanzlebener, Austrian Wohanka, White 

 Silesian and Vilmorin Imperial Improved. The seeds were given to the 

 farmers, with directions for planting and cultivating, and with re- 

 quest for samples of the beets for analysis. About 400 farmers received 

 the seed in widely distributed localities, and a large number of beets 

 were analyzed and the results given to the public in Bulletin No. 82. 



The result of these investigations was a demonstration that the soil 

 and climate of Michigan were adapted to produce sugar beets of ex- 

 cellent quality, well fitted for making s«gar. While this experimental 

 work did not evoke a single factory, it laid the foundation for a future 

 industry by furnishing the facts upon which it must rest. 



FRICTION AND READJUSTMENT. 



In starting a new industry, as in starting a new machine, some parts 

 need readjusting before everj^thing works smoothly. It is not strange 

 that in this new line of work, involving on one hand the raising of a 

 new kind of crop, on the other the manufacturing by complex machin- 

 ery of a commercial product, with conflicting interests so far as division 

 of profits is concerned, with an arbitrary law controlling these rela- 

 tions of factory and farm, that friction and disputes should arise; the 

 wonder is that there is so little of either. Too great expectations of 

 some and exaggerated disappointments of others did not simplify the 

 matter. Some assumed that with beets containing 12 per cent of sugar, 

 the factory should produce 240 pounds of granulated sugar from every 

 ton of such beets, and when they found that the average product in 

 the State was only 14234 pounds, dissatisfaction found open expres- 

 sion. The protracted drouth in some districts reduced the beet crop 

 below any profit to the farmer, and possibly the wheat crop by the 

 same drouth may have brought loss. But one defeat does not vanquish 

 the plucky Michigan farmer, and even in the shadow of defeat he plows 

 in hope, with expectation of a future harvest. 



But there is incidental loss in every manufacturing operation. The 

 carpenter finds waste in shavings, saw dust and ends; the metal worker 

 in smelting iron and copper ores does not recover all the metal, for a 

 certain portion is carried off in the slag. So in extracting sugar from 

 beets, the manufacturer that recovers 80 per cent of the sugar in the 

 form of granulated sugar does well. This would give 192 pounds of 

 commercial sugar from, each ton of 12 per cent beets. The sugar re- 

 tained in the molasses may be called the slag of the sugar factory. 



DISTRUST OF ANALYSIS. 



Perhaps the most serious cause of dissatisfaction arises from distrust 

 of the analytical results reached by different chemists. Beets from the 

 same field sent to W^ashington^ to Agricultural College and to the fac- 



