226 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



varieties, mailed them with full printed directions 

 as to culture, harvesting and recording of facts, 

 to one or two hundred farmers whom we had in- 

 terested in the work. Each year we had from 

 two to five hundred samples of beets to analyze. 

 At the end of the first year a beet-sugar company 

 was formed at Binghamton, works were erected 

 and equipped and after the harvest of the second 

 season of our experiments, I had the pleasure of 

 taking my class to the works to see the first sugar 

 ever made from beets in a large way in the 

 State of New York. 



While the land about Binghamton produced 

 beets of a high sugar content, it was not such as to 

 make beet growing profitable, much of it being too 

 clayey or too stoney ; it was difficult to get enough 

 cheap foreign labor for the American does not 

 take kindly to farming on his knees in weeding and 

 harvest time. For this and other reasons the fac- 

 tory was afterward moved to one of the western 

 States. But our labor was not in vain for it fur- 

 nished valuable information not only to the farm- 

 ers but to the Station staff, while putting us in 

 friendly communication with the most progressive 

 farmers of that portion of the State. 



