10 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



It is to be hoped that they will not be successful, in their efforts as 

 their success in this would result in the crushing of an industry of 

 great promise and of the highest importance to the agricultural inter- 

 ests of the country. 



If congress makes no change in the present law it is a foregone 

 conclusion that the American Beet Sugar Company will in the imme- 

 diate future construct another factory of equal, or greater capacity 

 than the one at Rocky Ford, at some point a little lower down in the 

 valley, probably Lamar. or possibly as far down as Garden City, Kan- 

 sas, and this will speedily be followed by similar plants in other loca- 

 tions. 



A very interesting thing in connection with this subject is the 

 fact that in Napoleon's time, when the sugar beet was introduced and 

 its culture commenced early in the nineteenth century in Prance, the 

 beets raised by the French farmers contained only about 5 per cent of 

 sugar, and it is estimated that it cost about 15 cents per pound to 

 manufacture beet sugar in France at that time. 



It seems quite marvelous that as a result of the gradual breeding 

 up and improvement of the sugar beet under improved methods of 

 cultivation that the content of saccharine matter has been multiplied 

 four or five times by the farmers of Western Kansas and eastern Colo- 

 rado as compared with the results obtained by the French farmers at 

 the time of the inception of the industry in France. 



The present season sugar beets brought a return to the farmers 

 who supplied the Rocky Ford factory of from $50.00 to $150.00 per 

 acre. 



From ten to thirty tons per acre are produced and the factory pays 

 from $4 00 to $7.00 per ton, the price being governed by the "sugar 

 content of the beet. 



The industry has proved quite profitable for the farmers, and the 

 factory at Rocky Ford has added greatly to the growth and prosperi- 

 ty of that little city. It now has a population of nearly four thousand 1 

 and the qalue of farming lands thereabout has doubled in the last two 

 years. Senator Swink has lived to see the realization of the dream of 

 his early manhood, and with it has come wealth to him as the largest 

 land owner of that region, bringing the well merited reward of his 

 steadfast faith, sound judgment, and hard, intelligent work. 



There are no more prosperous communities in the west than those- 

 of this great valley of eastern Colorado. 



Across the state line in Kansas the Arkansas River Valley is just 

 as fertile as in Colorado, and with the object lesson presented at Rocky 

 Ford, and the start given by the state bounty upon ihe production of 

 sugar beets, this great industry will rapidly acquire a foothold there 

 and it requires only ordinary business sagacity to see in the early 



