CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 279 



exhaust the latter. It is, however, not an easy task to induce the farmers at once to 

 grow an area with beets large enough to furnish a factory with sufficient raw mate- 

 rial of good quality for a successful starting. It takes time and experience to learn 

 how to grow rich sugar beets; the best way to learn it is to get direct interest in the 

 profit. Therefore such concerns who build factories, intending to buy the beets in a 

 section where the industry is not previously known, are generally forced to grow a 

 large portion of the beets themselves, by establishing some kind of bonanza farms, or 

 by renting suitable land for the ptirpose, returning it to the farmers after the crop 

 has been gatbered. In fact, this is the only way to secure within reasonable time 

 enough of good raw material, until, by and by, the farmers are educated for the task. 



In Denmark the beet-sugar industry was introduced in 1873, when it had been 

 ascertained by experiments during several years that sufficiently rich sugar beets 

 could be grown. Two factories were started, one by an old concern that previously 

 commanded the whole sugar refining business of the country, the other by a new 

 stock company prominently made up of landed proprietors. The former company 

 built a large factory in a fertile section occupied by intelligent farmers, who, it was 

 thought, should furnish the beets. The factory was capable of working up 12,500 tons 

 of beets a year. The first year only 2,500 tons of poor beets were received, and the 

 second year proved but little better. Tben the managers were convinced of the neces- 

 sity of adding farming to their business, and bought a farm of 300 acres, to manage 

 which an expert was engaged. Another year more land was added to the farm, and 

 suitable fields were rented for one year and grown with beets by the manufacturers. 

 On these lands rich sugar beets were grown. In the mean time the farmers learned 

 how to grow the beets, and the quantity received at the factory increased yearly, until 

 now sufficient raw material is furnished so as to run the factory profitably. Large 

 amounts of money were lost during the first five years. The business seemed con- 

 demned to failure, but the managers succeeded in keeping it going until the balance 

 turned, and now the factory is flourishing. 



The other company went at once to work and rented for twenty years three large 

 farms, of 2,000 acres of land in all, every acre of which was in a state of high cultiva- 

 tion and well drained. This land was divided into four fields and sown successively 

 with wheat, beets, barley, and clover ; so that every fourth year beets were grown on 

 the same land. Steam-plows and first class machinery were introduced. The factory 

 was built so as to work up 7,500 to 10,000 tons of beets a year. Besides those grown 

 on the 500 acres of the company, more beets were grown by the company on land 

 rented yearly and being returned to the farmers after use, and as many as possible 

 were bought. In this way the company succeeded in gathering 6,000 tons of toler- 

 ably rich beets the very first year, sufficient to make a rather successful start. The 

 factory being built at a time when all materials were as expensive as ever ; the price 

 of sugar falling about 30 per cent. ; hard competition being brought to bear from the 

 sugar refiners; an excessive duty even higher than that on imported sugar* being at 

 once enforced as soon as the .manufacture was started ; and finally entering the time 

 of universal financial depression, commanding insufficient capital, the company could, 

 however, not carry the work through, and failed in 1876. A new company took the 

 matter in hand, and carrying on the business on the same principle as it was hitherto 

 managed, have succcded in making it pay well. 



Having passed through extraordinary difficulties, the beet-sugar industry in Den- 

 mark is now successful. But though a handsome profit is realized by the manufactur- 

 ers, it is nothing compared with the indirect profit which is the result of the improve- 

 ment of the land where beets have been grown. The influence on the land of the deep 

 and thorough cultivation, and the use of fertilizers, which go hand in hand with the 



* The duty at once laid on the manufacture of beet sugar in Denmark -was a few years later acknowl- 

 edged by the government to be higher than that on imported sugar, and was reduced accordingly. In 

 no other country in the world has this industry suffered an immediate imposure of duty, time being 

 everywhere else allowed for the industry to develop and acquire stability. 



