800 TRANSACTIOxNS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



vast distances over which many farmers are obliged to transport 

 their produce render it oftentimes impossible to dispose of their 

 more bulky crops at a profit. The introduction of sugar-making 

 would give them another and most profitable crop, for which they 

 would have a home market. It would enlarge the local demand 

 for other farm produce by interspersing a manufacturing with an 

 agricultural population, to the great advantage of both. It would 

 go far to change the present wasteful and necessarily unenduring 

 system of agriculture, and to substitute for it another, founded 

 upon more correct principles — a system of self-sustaining and im- 

 proving, rather than suicidal and degenerating. 



The gold value of sugars imported into this country is nearly 

 $80,000,000 per annum. 



The annual consumption of sugar in the United States before 

 the war was over 450,000 tons. 



There is no doubt that within twenty years it will be more than 

 1,000,000 tons, for with the customary increase of population and 

 the consumption per head that existed before the war, that amount 

 would be required. 



With a proper rotation of crops the production of that amount 

 of sugar involves the cultivation of 4,000,000 acres of land, of 

 which 1,000,000 would be in beets, the base of the sj'stem. It 

 would give employment the "year round, in the fields and in the 

 mills, to more than 125,000 men, women, and children. It would 

 require $100,000,000 to be expended in buildings and machinery. 

 It would disburse annually $100,000,000 for labor and materials. 

 It would require each year more than 1,500,000 tons of coal. It 

 would fatten every year 400,000 head of cattle, or 4,000,000 

 sheep. 



There is hardly an interest that it would injure, while it would 

 be diflScult to find one that would confer so many, so great, and 

 so general advantages upon the country. It is destined to become 

 one of the most important branches of national industr3\ 



At the conclusion of Mr. Grant's remarks the Association ad- 

 journed. 



i 



American Institute Polytechnic Association, 



Februarij 21, 1867. 



Prof. S. D. Tillman in the chair ; Mr. T. D. Stetson, Esq., Secy. 



The chairman said he could not open the proceedings without 



paying a brief tribute to the memory of the distinguished scientist, 



