EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART III. 89 



Europe has 1,500 sugar factories, scattered over all but two European 

 nations. 



In 1864 the United States consumed 18 pounds per capita, while last 

 year our consumption was 76 pounds, as compared to 90 pounds in Great 

 Britain and 7 pounds in Italy. 



In 1888 the production of beet sugar in the United States reached 1,000 

 tons for the first time in our history. When the present tariff bill was 

 enacted ten years ago we had six beet sugar factories in the United 

 States which produced 40,000 tons of beet sugar. Last year we had 

 63 factories in operation and produced 483,612 tons of sugar sur- 

 passing for the first time the cane sugar output. 



Last year the American farmer received nearly $25,000,000 as his share 

 of the beet crop and as much more went to laborers and other em- 

 ployees of the factories, the coal mines, the railroads, the lime kilns and 

 numerous other classes of American industries. Our Agricultural De- 

 partment now classes it as the seventh most important agricultural 

 product. . 



The retail price of sugar in New York averages cheaper than the re- 

 tail prices In Berlin, Paris, Vienna or St. Petersburg, the commercial 

 centers of the world's greatest beet sugar producing countries. 



If by fostering this great industry, an unjust burden has been laid 

 upon any citizen of any state in the union, the figures do not show it. 

 The state of Iowa will consume the product of sixteen factories such as 

 we have at Waverly, so you will understand the market is at our door. 



Factories in successful operation will produce about 200 lbs. of sugar 

 to each ton of beets, and the state of Iowa with its 2,225,000 people, re- 

 quires 85,000 tons of sugar annually, 850,000 tons of beets or the product 

 of 85,000 acres, figuring 10 tons as an average, although the average 

 should be considerable more than that. The state of Michigan in 1906 

 exceeded 12 tons average. Over 110,000 acres were grown by 27,000 

 farmers. 



Speaking of Michigan, the industry in that state was started in 1897, 

 when one factory was built at Bay City with a slicing capacity of 500 

 tons daily, exactly the same capacity as the one we have built at 

 Waverly. 



At this present time there are sixteen factories in active and successful 

 operation, and do the farmers of Iowa admit that the land in Michigan 

 is more fertile, that its sunshine is more bright, or that its farmers are 

 more intelligent than those of Iowa, or are the farmers of Iowa content 

 with smaller profits, or do they believe they can pay the Interest on 

 present values of land by growing oats and corn? My faith Is that 

 eventually, in order for the fertile acres of Iowa to produce for their 

 owners their full fruition, they must resort to more intense cultivation 

 and a more careful tillage and more particularly a rotation of crops. 



To return to the manufacture of sugar. I have already shown you that 

 the need exists and that the opportunity is here. The factory is the 

 medium whereby the consumer is placed in more direct communication 

 with the producer. In one door it takes the beets from the farmer, pay- 

 ing him $5.00 per ton, it works up the ton of beets through the factory 

 and produces sugar which it sells to the grocer, receiving approximately 

 $9.00. Between these two figures they must pay for the coal, for the 



