IV PREFACE. 



more, it would be a most enlightened measure of statesmanship 

 and national economy to add this one to our industries, at any 

 cost. 



J There is nothing more delusive than mere prices as expressed 

 In money of account. It may, for instance, be economical 

 yto buy an article at a high price, when the circumstances 

 |-attending the production of that article are such as to pro- 

 duce a market for one's own labor, while it is dear to buy it at a 

 low price when the production of the article makes no demand 

 for that labor. Things produced abroad, which entirely de- 

 stroy the power of our own unemployed people to produce an 

 equal quantity of the same articles, are dear at any price, 

 because the power to labor — almost the only capital possessed 

 by the great body of the people — is the most perishable of all 

 commodities, and, if not utilized upon the instant of produc- 

 tion, is lost and gone forever. Further, price is no accurate 

 or necessary measure of the human efibrt involved in the pro- 

 duction of a thing — cheap things often being produced by 

 means of the enslavement of man. 



That the beet sugar industry will, ere many years, be 

 established upon a firm and enduring foundation in this 

 country, the author has not the shadow of a doubt. That it 

 will finally become a magnificent one, like those of France 

 and Germany, he is equally certain. If the publication of this 

 book should result, in even a moderate degree, in opening 

 the eyes of the American p)eople to the magnitude of the 

 interests involvecl7~ancr in pointing out to them the true, 

 necessary, and fundamental principles upon which success de- 

 pend§.rr-jAe 'pjrq'j^er^^deaiXon and~euliivcdio7i of the beet — the writer 

 will not feel that he has labored in vain. 



L. S. W. 



Phladelphia, Nov. 25, 1879. 



