Land Problems and National Welfare 



an interest in the profits ; the dependence of 

 each party on the other would facilitate the 

 introduction of the change and would ensure 

 the supply of material to the factory from its 

 own neighbourhood. 



" I see only one difficulty in the way, namely, 

 the dearth of workers. Even this, however, 

 is not insurmountable ; it will have rather a 

 favourable effect than otherwise, in that it will 

 prevent a too rapid growth of the sugar produc- 

 tion, and enable Germany gradually to dispose 

 otherwise of her production. A factory which 

 is to prosper requires the produce of at least 

 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres), which means 

 that it must be surrounded by an area of at 

 least 8,000 hectares (about 20,000 acres). A 

 trained workman can attend to i to i^ hec- 

 tares of beet, which requires attention during 

 6 to 8 weeks in the spring and 3 to 4 weeks 

 in the autumn ; the employment of machinery 

 reduces the work required to be done by 

 human beings by 30 per cent. A farm of the 

 size mentioned above, devoted to the cultiva- 

 tion of sugar beet, thus needs from 1,400 to 

 2,000 workmen. A further difficulty arises from 

 the fact that the cultivation of sugar beet pro- 

 vides work for human beings only for a short 

 period of the year, but even this is not insur- 

 mountable. The residue from the beet sugar 

 factories forms excellent fodder ; the sliced beet 



48 



