Sugar Beet Culture 



A half century of failure had well nigh convinced the 

 American farmer that the production of sugar from the beet 

 would not succeed here when on the site of one of the most 

 disastrous failures there arose the first successful American 

 Beet Sugar Factory. This was established at Alvarado, 

 California, in 1880, and since that time we have learned that 

 the early failures were due to selection of unsuitable loca- 

 tions in relation to soil, climate, water supply and labor con- 

 ditions, as well as to bad business management and defective 

 equipment. 



So rapid has been the progress of the beet industry in the 

 United States that it now produces about one- fourteenth of 

 the world's beet sugar supply, or one-twenty-eighth of the 

 world's total sugar supply. 



In the campaign of 1908-9 there were operated 63 fac- 

 tories, slicing nearly 4,000,000 tons of beets and producing 

 about 500,000 tons of sugar. These, factories were located 

 in 1 6 states, those having more than one factory being Cali- 

 fornia 8, Colorado 16, Idaho 4, Michigan 16, Utah 5, Wis- 

 consin 4, while Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, 

 Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Ari- 

 zona have one each, the factory in the last named not being 

 in operation. 



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