926 READINGS .IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



is a clear comparative advantage in corn growing. This grain is 

 peculiarly adapted to extensive agriculture. It also lends itself 

 readily to the use of machinery ; corn can be " cultivated " be- 

 tween the rows by horse power. It is a substitute for root crops, 

 and can be rotated steadily with small-grain crops. It is a direct 

 competitor with the sugar beet for cattle fattening. The advocates 

 of beet raising always lay stress on the value of the beet pulp, 

 the residue at the factory after the juice has been extracted, for 

 cattle feeding. But corn is at least equally valuable for the pur- 

 pose, and the typical American farmer raises it by agricultural 

 methods which he finds both profitable and congenial. One man 

 can grow forty acres of corn. He can plant only twenty acres of 

 beets ; and these he cannot possibly thin and top. In Iowa "the 

 farmers are progressive, successful, and satisfied. In fact, this 

 has been the main obstacle to installing the sugar industry there. 

 The farmers have not shown a disposition to grow the beets. 

 When the farmers are advised that beet culture is accompanied 

 with considerable hard work, factory propositions usually succumb 

 to the inevitable. The farming class of the state is accustomed 

 to the use of labor-saving implements in the fields," 



It is not an accident that the states of the Great Lakes region 

 in which the sugar-beet industry has shown some development 

 Michigan and, in much less degree, Ohio and Wisconsin 

 are outside the corn belt. Except along the southern edge of 

 these states, the grain does not ordinarily mature. Yet even here 

 corn remains a formidable competitor of the sugar beet, in its 

 use through ensilage. It is cut green, stored in the silos, and 

 so is available for cattle feeding. It continues to be available in 

 rotation with other grain and with grass. During the last two 

 decades Wisconsin has become a great dairy state. "The pasture, 

 hay, and corn lands of the state form the basis of the livestock 

 industry.." Here there is a profitable system of agriculture in 

 which there is no need of the minute attention, the elaborate 

 cultivation, the wearisome labor, which are required for the sugar 

 beet. As compared with the Far West, Michigan and Wisconsin, 

 as will presently appear, lack some climatic advantages. A tariff 

 subsidy may make it worth while for their farmers to grow the 



