322 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Prof. Green: I have watched and studied this question with 
a great deal of interest. When I entered the Agricultural 
College in 1875, they were then talking of raising sugar beets 
in Massachusetts, just the same as we are to-day. One of the 
professors had made sugar in the laboratory and had proved 
that the beets in Massachusetts were just as rich in sugar as 
the beets in Germany. We imported a lot of German machin- 
ery and built a factory at Franklin, Mass., and another at 
Portland, Maine, and several others. They paid $4.50 a ton, 
and I think some of them paid $5.00. The farmers started in 
to raise them, thinking they could make money at that price, 
but they were unable todo so. The factories were obliged to 
close their doors because beets could not be raised cheaply 
enough. Iam afraid that will be our experience. When you 
come to sow the seed and to thin it out and weed it—the first 
weeding is always an expensive matter—and pick the beets 
and select them—for the sugar beet is of no use for sugar un- 
less it grows below the ground, and is less than three pounds 
in weight—you will find it a pretty costly undertaking. Then 
they must be carried to the mill and all that, and, at the price 
they offer for them to-day, I do not believe there will be any 
money in them. Ido not believe that you can raise beets in 
this state for $3.50 a ton. 
Mrs. Bonniwell: I think it pays to raise sugar beets to feed 
our dairy stock. ; 
Mr. Cutler: I think it is thoroughly impracticable for us to 
engage in beet sugar culture in this state, with our present 
methods of farming. Even now it is almost impossible to se- 
cure laborers to harvest our crops. Even with the amount of 
machinery that we have to cultivate and manageour farms with, 
we have found it almost impossible to secure help enough. You 
all recall the experience of the farmers in Dakota this fall. 
With the present high cost of labor, I believe it to be impracti- 
cable to pursue the system of cultivation needed to produce the 
sugar beet, a system of intense cultivation that requires much 
hand labor. Labor is very cheap in Germany. It might be 
possible in the Southern states, where labor can be secured for 
25 to 50 cents a day, to successfully engage in this industry; 
also in California, where they have Chinese labor. It is my 
belief that our sugar will be raised in those countries where 
labor is very much cheaper and in a more degraded condition 
than with us. ' 
