24 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



so by contract. After that business is once on its feet the farmer will need no 

 contract to induce him to grow the beets necessary to support the factory. 



Q. Will it pay to rent land to raise beets? 



N. B. Bradley: Certainly it will. It is better to pay a money rent than rent on 

 •hares. One man, sending beets to the Michigan Sugar Co., paid $6.00 per acre 

 rent for 100 acres. The returns were $55.00 per acre, leaving him net $2,100.00. 



Q. Will tile drained, quick-sand bottom, tamarack lands do for beets? 



C. D. Smith: I should be afraid of them, afraid of frosts among other things. 

 Try them on a small scale. 



Wm. Casement: What is the feeding value of sugar beets to milk cows, milk 

 selling at $1.80 per 100 lbs., and to fattening cattle, when beef is worth $4 per cwt? 



C. D. Smith: It is hard to fix a definite price without knowing the other com- 

 ponents of the ration. It would not be far from $3.00 per ton. 



W. Schlichter, Brown City: Will f. factory take beets topped at home? 



N. B. Bradley: What the factory wants is the part of the beet testing over 

 12 per cent sugar, the part below the ground only. Don't pay freight on the tops 

 or part of root above ground. Keep those parts at home. 



Q. Can beet seed be sown with a common grain drill? How do you regulate it? 



F. W. Dunham. West Bay City: I sowed 5 acres in rows 20 inches apart with 

 di-ill, and harvested 21 tons" to the acre, getting a gross return of $464.36 from the 

 five acres. Put the delivery on the oat side of the feed, and set drill to sow largest 

 possible quantity of oats. I use a Champion drill. 



Q. Why is Mr. Ross going to raise beets this year, 1S99? 



A. L. Ross, Oakland County: I visited Bay City and found the farmers all satis- 

 fied with their success last year. I read what Secretary Wilson said about beets 

 succeeding to the place that lumbering has occupied and that Michigan was in 

 the very center of the beet belt, so I made up my mind to try it. 



Q. How is it that 65,000,000 pounds of beets testing 13 per cent sugar only yielded 

 5,500,000 pounds of sugar, or less than 9 per cent? What became of the rest? 



N. B. Bradley: I have given you the results for this year. We were pioneers 

 and made the mistakes of pioneers without experience. We will do better next 

 year with our increased knowledge and improved methods and machinery. 



Q. Will the profit the farmer makes from an acre of beets pay the bounty on 

 the sugar made from it? 



N. B. Bradley: If he has a yield of 12 tons and the factory gets 180 pounds of 

 sugar per ton of beets, the acre will yield 2,160 pounds of sugar, on which the 

 bounty will be $21.60. The farmer would make probably a profit of $30.00. 



Q. Is any attention paid to the coefficient of purity in paying for beets? 



N. B. Bradley: No. The law is silent on that point; a high coefficient means 

 that beets work more easily, but whether we can secure more sugar from beets 

 showing a higher coefficient than from others with same per cent of sugar we 

 shall have to find out. 



S. Brickner, Brown City: Will the farmers continue to raise beets in your sec- 

 tion? 



" N. B. Bradley: Yes. All patrons but possibly three will continue to raise be?ts. 

 .All are contented and happy over the results. 



Q. Would it be possible to get a factory now if preliminaries were all settled? 



N. B. Bradley: Yes, If everyone connected with the enterprise moved vigor- 

 ouslv. There certainly is no time to lose. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF MIXED FARMING. 



HON. H. H. HINDS. STANTON, MONTCALM COUNTY. 



To the scientific investigator as well as the specialist in practical lines 

 we owe much, very, very much. Notwithstanding all this^ during our 

 time, and during the time of some generations still unborn, the great 

 bulk of agricultural products of Michigan, not excepting butter fat or 

 even sugar beets, will come from the farms of men who are pursuing 

 mixed husbandr3^ 



Continued success in farming is stated in a single short sentence and 



