16 The Sugar-Beet in America 



THE INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES 



The first effort to grow sugar-beets in the United 

 States was made about 1830 at Ensfield near Philadelphia. 

 In 1836 a number of citizens of Philadelphia became in- 

 terested in sugar-beet culture and sent James Pedder to 

 France to study the business. A company known as 

 "The Beet Sugar Society of Philadelphia" was organized 

 with James Donaldson, the chief promoter, as president. 

 Pedder sent home about 600 pounds of seed to be dis- 

 tributed among the farmers for trial. No evidence is 

 available that a factory resulted from this effort. 



The first factory was erected at Northampton, Massa- 

 chusetts, in 1838, by David Lee Child, assisted by Edward 

 Church and Maximin Isnard, who had played an impor- 

 tant part in establishing the industry in France and who 

 was at this time French vice-consul at Boston. The seed 

 was imported from France. It gave a satisfactory yield 

 — from thirteen to fifteen tons to the acre — but the 

 beets were low in sugar. In 1839, 1300 pounds of sugar 

 were produced and several prizes were taken. The in- 

 dustry could not be made to pay under the circumstances, 

 and the factory never ran after 1840. 



Soon after the settlement of Utah, in 1847, the Mor- 

 mon pioneers began to establish different home indus- 

 tries in order to make themselves as industrially inde- 

 pendent as possible. Since at this time all manufactured 

 goods had to be hauled from the ^Missouri River to Salt 

 Lake City by team, sugar was worth from forty cents to 

 one dollar a pound. John Taylor (Plate II), who was 

 laboring as a missionary in France, studied the beet-sugar 



