ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 91 



its complete success, but for its existence. Without seed the 

 sugar-beet industry, in which more than 70,000 American farmers 

 are directly interested, could not exist, and without beets the 

 84 beet-sugar mills now standing, with an invested capital of 

 more than $100,000,000, would be idle. The beet-seed industry 

 is, of course, the foundation upon which sugar-beet growing and 

 beet-sugar extraction rests. Because of its fundamental char- 

 acter, it is surprising that sugar-beet seed production in this 

 country has not received more general and more earnest atten- 

 tion in the past. The two primary causes that have operated 

 against the development of the sugar-beet seed industry in this 

 country were (i) the fact that a sufficient quantity of seed to 

 meet our requirements was easily obtainable from European 

 countries at a reasonable price and (2) the prevailing idea that 

 conditions in this country, from the standpoint either of labor 

 cost or of climate, would not permit the successful development 

 of the seed industry in the United States. Recent experiences, 

 however, have shown the folly of depending upon foreign coun- 

 tries for our beet-seed supply, while experiments extending 

 over many years have proved the falsity of the opinion relative 

 to labor and climatic conditions. 



PROGRESS IN AMERICAN SUGAR-BEET SEED PRODUCTION 



The earliest efforts toward sugar-beet culture in this country, 

 in 1830, were made with seed brought from Europe. When the 

 first permanent beet-sugar mill was established in America, 

 in 1879, European seed was used to produce the raw material, 

 and even at the present time, with nearly 80 mills in operation, 



