THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



277 



trees and at the same time driving out ob- 

 noxious weeds and grasses. 



JOEL SHOMAKER, 



BOOM BEET CULTURE. 

 C. F. Saylor of Iowa, the special agent 

 in Chicago for the beet sugar investigation 

 of the department of agriculture, has sub- 

 mitted his report to Secretary Wilson 

 He says this year shows a very active ten- 

 dency toward the institution of new beet 

 sugar enterprises. Next autumn, he says 

 Michigan will have three new factories and 

 Ohio, Indiana, New York, Colorado, 

 South and North Dakota and Illinois will 

 install new factories, making 138 through- 

 out the country now in contemplation. A 

 conservative estimate, he says, is that 

 there will be forty-two beet sugar factories 

 in operation throughout the United States 

 by the end of next autumn. Everything 

 indicates that the industry is thoroughly 

 established throughout the country. Even 

 in the incipiency of the industry the fac- 

 tories have shown good protits. They 

 have maintained themselves without any 

 apparent real contest with the sugar trust. 

 The sections of the country that seem 

 most adaptable to the industry are where 

 conditions call for new resources, as in 

 Michigan, where there has been a large in- 

 crease in the last three years, largely due 

 to the waning of the lumbering industry 

 of that region. There will be fourteen 

 factories there 'next season, California is 

 the leading state in production, with eight 

 factories, including the largest in the 

 world. The immense amount of pulp and 

 refuse left after the extraction of the sugar 

 appeals especially to the farmer and the 

 corollary industries that gr>w out of farm 

 products. No feed is so valuable and so 

 cheap for the dairy and stock-feedi .g in 

 this country as beet pulp. These facto- 

 ries turnout from 45 to 50 per cent of the 

 original weight of the beets worked in the 

 form of refuse or bi product. Sugar beets 

 seem to respond especially to cultivation 



n the arid regions, where they have given 

 better results than any other crop. The 

 arid section has been enabled to cope with 

 other sections of the country where the 

 crops have been produced by natural rain- 

 fall, not in the amount of tonnage per 

 acre, but in the higher sugar contents and 

 the purity of beet. The results in Utah 

 have demonstrated the feasibility of the 

 central plant idea, with branches scattered 

 at numerous points for performing some 

 detailed parts of the work. 



HOW I MAKE PRIZE BUTTER. 



I use good milk only, and I have a rather 

 hard time getting it. The milk is heated 

 in the receiving- vat to about seventy-five 

 degrees and finished in the little tempering 

 vat. When it reaches eighty-six degrees 

 it is run through a separotor, skimming a 

 thirty per cent cream. I use a starter and 

 this, with the hand separator cream, brings 

 the percentage of fat down to twenty-six 

 or twenty-seven per cent, which I consider 

 about right to secure that high, delicate 

 flavor so well liked in our markets. My 

 aim is to stir the cream every half hour, 

 ripening at a temperature of from sixty- 

 eight to seventy degrees, and as the degree 

 of acidity advanc s the cream is gradually 

 cooled down so that it stands at churning 

 temperature at least six hours. The cream 

 will show from sixty-two to sixty-four of 

 one per cent of acidity with alkali tablets 

 at the time of churning. 



The cream is churned at from fifty-three 

 to fifty-four degrees, and breaks in forty to 

 forty five minutes. The butter comes in 

 granules the size of wheat grains. The 

 buttermilk is drawn off immediately, and 

 the butter washed in just enough water to 

 float it. The churn is given a few revolu- 

 tions with the engine at full speed. 

 The water is drawn off directly, as I think 

 it very essential to making a high-flavored 

 product not to let it soak in water. The 

 butter is well drained, put on the table- 

 worker. saUeu with one ounce of fine salt 



