18 The Sugar-Beet in America 



California. Failure was due in part at least to a lack of 

 interest on the part of farmers in raising beets. 



Two Germans, by the name of Otto and Bonestell, erected 

 a plant of ten tons daily capacity at Fond du Lac, Wis- 

 consin, in 1868. After two years of partial success, the 

 enterprise was abandoned. Otto went to Alvarado, 

 California, in 1870 and associated himself with Klineau 

 and E. H. Dyer, who the year before had raised 150 acres 

 of beets as an experiment. The $125,000 factory which 

 they erected produced 250 tons of sugar in 1870, 400 tons 

 in 1871, 560 tons in 1872, and 750 tons in 1873. The 

 average cost of producing sugar was about ten cents a 

 pound. The plant did not pay and later was moved to 

 Santa Cruz County. In 1871 the Sacramento Beet 

 Sugar Company began the operation of a small plant. It 

 made sugar and molasses for several years and was finally 

 sold to E. H. Dyer. This was the first plant in the 

 country to use the diffusion battery system of extracting 

 the juice. 



Other unsuccessful attempts to establish the industry 

 were made at Portland, Maine (1896), Edgemoor, Dela- 

 ware (1877), Franklin, Massachusetts (1879), and Rio 

 Grande, New Jersey (1879). These failures were due to 

 various causes: (1) lack of experienced beet-raisers, (2) 

 poor quality of beets, (3) imperfect machinery, (4) mis- 

 takes in locating factories, and (5) general lack of interest 

 in the industry. 



Commercial success in the United States. 

 The successful commercial production of beet-sugar in 

 the United States may be said to date from about 1890. 



