K-ANSAS ALSO GROWS 

 SUGAR-BEETS. 



No part of Kansas ever tried to raise beets for 

 sugar-making purposes prior to 1901 when, 

 owing to the proximity of a factory at Rocky 

 Ford, Colo., one hundred or more farmers, all 

 new to the business, in Finney, Kearny and 

 Hamilton, three western Kansas counties, repre- 

 senting a strip of country seventy-five miles 

 long, undertook the raising of a few acres of 

 beets each, under a contract with the factory, at 

 $4 per ton for all beets with at least 12 per cent, 

 of sugar, and an increased price in proportion as 

 the beets were sweeter. Some neglected their 

 crops and did not attempt to deliver them to the 

 factory, but seventy-seven growers harvested 

 1,747 tons from 337 acres, or 22g tons each, rang- 

 ing in sugar content, according to the factory's 

 weighing and paying, from 13.3 to 22.8 per cent , 

 and averaging, the good with the bad, 17.8 per 

 cent while the average in Germany, the great 

 beet-sugar country of the world, is reported as 

 about 15 per cent., and in all Europe but 13 j to 

 14 per cent. Some of these beets were so 

 rich that the factory was glad to pay as high 

 as ?^7-5o per ton for them, and paid an average 

 for all Kansas beets of $5.14 per ton; a result 

 both gratifying and significant, especially when 

 the growers' inexperience, and insufficient and 

 unsuitable equipment are taken into considera- 

 tion with the records for quantity and quality. 



The average profit per acre realized by thirty- 

 seven growers from whom accurate figures were 

 obtained was $17-08, and ranged, in some in- 

 stances, as high as $43 per acre. Fifteen of the 

 more successful or painstaking growers raised 

 an average of not quite eleven tons per acre (the 

 maximum per acre was eighteen and forty-one 

 hundreths tons), yielding an average of 17.59 

 per cent, of sugar, and $28.48 profit per acre. 

 All this was exclusive of the $i-per-ton bounty 

 paid by the State. 



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