293 RURAL MICHIGAN 



ing requirements. The Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege imported some 1,760 pounds of sugar-beet seed 

 from Europe in 1890, which was distributed to 

 farmers throughout the Lower Peninsula. The re- 

 sults were highly gratifying. The average product 

 to the acre was nearly fifteen tons, with 13.86 per 

 cent of sugar in the juice, as reported by E. C. 

 Kedzie of the Agricultural College.^ Even better 

 results were secured from a second experimental 

 demonstration in 1897. By the year 1899^ the Col- 

 lege had distributed more than 5,000 pounds of beet 

 seed, and seems entitled to claim primacy in the 

 establishment of the beet-sugar industry in Michigan. 

 Meanwhile the United States Weather Bureau had 

 mapped the area of climatic conditions favorable to 

 the culture of the sugar-beet. It was believed that 

 the sugar-beet could not be grown far from the 

 isotherm of 70 degrees — an opinion since disproved 

 — and that three inches of rain during each month 

 of the growing season with ample sunshine were re- 

 quired. Michigan fell within this area, but it has 

 been demonstrated that the sugar-beet does very well 

 in the northern districts of the State where tem- 

 peratures average well below the 70 degrees isotherm, 

 and that the greatly enhanced amount of sunshine 

 and twilight resulting from the higher latitude of the 

 region is remarkably favorable to sugar-content. In 

 1897 the legislature provided a bounty of one cent 

 a pound on sugar produced in Michigan. 



The first beet-sugar factory in ]\Iichigan was 

 ^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX, 203. 



