214 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
Sugar-beet culture has been commenced in Colorado with very prom- 
ising initial results, Reports of enormous yields are received, two 
cultivators having secured over seventy tons per acre. JF'armers were 
sanguine as to their ability to raise an ‘average of fifty tons. Their 
quality is now being tested at Chatsworth, Illinois. Efforts are being 
made to establish a manufactory in Colorado. 
The value of success in industry may be partly estimated from our enor- 
mous importation of foreign sugar. During the fiscaJ year ending June 
30, 1870, we imported 1,160,460,114 pounds of brown sugar, 151,520 
pounds of refined sugar, 36,161,935 pounds of melado and sirup of sugar- 
cane, 55,820 pounds of candy and confectionery, and 56,373,537 gallons of 
molasses. The total declared value of these imports was $69,827,884. 
Our domestic sugar-cane, beet, maple, and sorghum did not amount to 
one-eighth of this aggregate. Europe, from the expansion of her beet- 
sugar production, now supplies one-half of her home demand, and the 
industry is extending into England upon a scale which promises to 
rival that of the continent. We see no reason to doubt that we, with 
our abundant natural resources, may be able to do fully as well as 
Europe. Estimates by French statisticians prior to the insurrection in 
Cuba place the world’s aggregate sugar production at .2,300,000 tons, 
one-third of the whole amount being assigned to Cuba. The industry 
of the cane-producing countries of the world, from which the great 
mass of our import is derived, is mostly in a rudimentary or in a 
disorganized condition. Slave labor still existsin Brazil and the Spanish 
West Indies, while the emancipated labor of other regions as yet works 
at a disadvantage, not having been systematized or adapted to the con- 
ditions of a progressive civilization. The reorganization of this free 
labor has been in progress for many years, yet it is not so far advanced 
as in our Southern States after an interval of only five years of peace; 
nor does it present any prospect of a more rapid reconstruction in the 
future. Hence, though enjoying the exuberant natural resources of a 
tropical soil and climate, these foreign sugar industries will work at an 
essential disadvantage with our own. The insurrection in Cuba has 
desolated the finest portions of the island, and the financial condition of 
the sugar interests is critical. Of 1,800 plantations it is reported that 
scarcely 1 per cent. is free from mortgages, and that operations are pros- 
ecuted at such a disadvantage as to return not over 4 per cent. on the 
capital, while money loans cost 9 per cent. Into this breach, then, the 
beet-sugar industry of the United States should at once be thrown, and 
the best use be made of its excellent opportunity. 
The value of the beet-sugar manufacture, as an aid to stock fattening 
and to intensive culture, has frequently been mentioned. Both leaves 
and pulp furnish valuable food for stock. Dr. Voelcker, in the Journal 
of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, gives the following 
analysis of beet-root pulp, from Mr. Duncan’s experimental crops at 
Lavenham: 
WE ee ae, Meee tert 70.11 
Flesh-forming substances, (containing nitrogen). -.....-..---..-----+---------- 2.25 
Sr ERODE Eee wine oss oan week a cee case ect aics ss aeee Eels anon aie 3.39 
MiGCU Gr pee Bee ae ei. oo ee sees de eA oes eewoeue 1.93 
Digestiblewemermule MUer 2... 2.5 -- 06. aces beds snc at gee ene = Oo ajene See 15.13 
WiGOG HB pre een eee as nies nce. cock wodel - dees ma See ee eeReee oe «bt l= seer 5.32 - 
BE Pan Ree CEMIB ain = oon ns ead sa ndac oat on Enee we oe aeeeeee 1.87 
100.00 
The best root contains 154 per cent. of solid matter, while, from the 
