90 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cooperage or package in which the sugar is placed, the lime rock and the 

 coke, they must satisfy the labor that manipulates the beets, they must 

 pay for the wear and tear on their machinery, with all its incidentals, 

 and they must at the same time maintain an intelligent field force who 

 are intended to assist the farmer in the proper cultivation of his beets. 

 It will not be necessary to continue to instruct the farmer, as two or three 

 years' cultivation will put them in possession of all we know about the 

 cultivation. 



In addition to the hand labor which I have already specified, the proper 

 cultivation of beets demands, first, the preparation of the ground and 

 the seeding, sufficient cultivation through the growing season so that the 

 subjection of the weeds is assured, the lifting of the roots after they 

 are matured with a beet lifter, and the hauling of the beets to the sheds 

 or cars. It is estimated that $30 per acre, which includes the contract 

 hand labor, should cover the entire cost of cultivation and hauling, figur- 

 ing the latter at an extreme of 50 cents per ton. So that a crop of six 

 tons will cover all the necessary expenses of raising an acre of beets. 

 The seed is furnished by the factory at cost, 10 cents per lb. The 

 average receipts for the farmer in Michigan is $48 per acre, while in 

 Colorado it is $75 per acre. 



After the beets are placed in the sheds they are floated in flumes to 

 the factory, where they are sliced into long, thin cossetts, when they 

 are placed in the diffusion battery and the sugar extracted from the slices. 

 The resulting juice is treated with milk of lime and carbonic acid gas to 

 eliminate the solid impurities, after which the production of sugar simply 

 means the elimination of the water by evaporation. There are, of course, 

 many steps in the process necessary to purify the juice, eliminating all 

 salts and pectic substances. 



It is popularly supposed that cane sugar is in some way superior to 

 beet sugar, but I venture to say there is no one whj by any process 

 either chemical or otherwise, can demonstrate any difference. Sugar is 

 a chemical product of a definite crystallization and there is no difference 

 whatever in the cane and beet sugars, and they are sold in the market 

 side by side. 



After the juice is extracted from the cossetts the residuum becomes 

 a valuable stock food, rich in protein, and when fed with other feed rations 

 gives results that can not be obtained with any other feed in the same 

 space of time. Milch cows will produce more and better milk and stock 

 can be fattened with one-third less the amount of grain. 



The Iowa farmer is faced with a weed condition that is extremely 

 dangerous. Long continued cultivation of corn which permits the growth 

 and ripening of weeds in the hills after the crop is laid by has filled the 

 soil with seeds of all sorts of noxious vegetation. The cultivation of 

 beets is one of the steps necessary to eliminate this condition, and I 

 think you will agree with me that any steps in this direction are proper 

 for the farmer to consider. I understand that some farmers have been 

 reduced to the point of three years cultivation of fields in order to de- 

 stroy quack-grass without any return whatever. 



The German Agricultural Society has made a study of the cultivation 

 of beets covering fifty years and in one of their recent reports they make 

 the statement that if a farmer received no returns whatever for his 



