REPOKT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



157 



reports contaia fuller statistics, especially of acreage, showing the num- 

 ber of acres cut and ground at 91,701 inl875, a%d 104,944 in 1S7G. Tiie 

 sugar product averaged 1,782 pounds per acre in 1875,and 1,817 in 1S7G ; 

 molasses product 118-| pounds per acre in 1875, and 114 in 187G. 



While the coast counties of Texas afford a productive field for sugar- 

 extension, and most of Florida, especially the rich undrained (at 

 present) and cheap lands on the Gulf coast in Western Florida, is well 

 suited to sugar culture, the principal sugar-production is still confined 

 to Louisiana. There is some cane grown for local use in the form of sirup 

 in all of the Gulf-coast States, and a few hogsheads of sugar are an- 

 nually made. In the future of this industry, with the aid of central 

 factories, equipped with the best machinery, surrounded by laborers on 

 small farms who shall plant such patches of cane as they can cultivate 

 and sell to these factories, the possibilities of rapid increase in produc- 

 tion are very hopeful. The great mass of laborers are poor and cannot 

 equip such a factory, or even find means to establish a co-operative fac- 

 tory, but they can cultivate each ten or twenty acres of cane, just as 

 they now grow a little cotton and pay toll for ginning and baling at a 

 neighboring gin. Land is abundant and cheap, and every man who has 

 a spark of energy or ambition cannot be restrained from the location of 

 a home. On this account it is impracticable to extend sugar-grovring 

 on the old system. The adoption of this plan, which requires systematic 

 eftbrt for the establishment of factories as a prime requisite, with an 

 understanding and contracts with the i)rospecfcive cane-growers, ought 

 to secure a rapid enlargement of our sugar i)roductious, a corresponding 

 reduction of the importation, and an annual saving to the country of 

 millions of dollars. 



BEET-SUGAR. 



In the United States, beet-sugar production is scarcely yet past the 

 experimental stage, out of which, in Europe, success only emerged after 

 long trial and repeated reverses and failures. There, while the industry 

 was struggling for an assured foothold, successor failure dependedmuch 

 upon legislation; but hero the chief cause of many failures in first at- 

 tempts has been a want of practical knowledge and skill in a business 

 new to the agriculturist and manufacturer. Prominent among early at- 

 unnpts in this country which have not been crowned with ultimate suc- 

 t;ess, except in the way of developing mistakes for later attempts to 

 shun, were one in Hampshire County, ^lassachusetts, about the year 

 1837 ; one in Livingston County, Illinois, inaugurated in 1863, and trans- 



