34 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



has continued its existence to the present time. Its machinery came originally 

 from the failures in Illinois and Wisconsin. The Alvarado enterprise struggled along 

 for years, while the farmers were learning how to grow beets, and while the quality 

 of beets was being improved, and in the face of the competition -of free sugar from 

 Hawaii. Too much credit cannot be extended to E. H. Dyer, and his -fialffrer, Edward 

 F. Dyer and others, for their persistent work at Alvarado. 



Credit is also due Dr C. A. Goessman, an expert who came over from Germany 

 in 1857, as chemist to a sugar refinery at Philadelphia and became chemist to the 

 Massachusetts agricultural college at Amherst ten years later. With funds furnished 

 by that institution, Goessman conducted the first really scientific work in sugar-beet 

 culture in this country, 1873-6. This was followed by work with sorghum, 1870-9, 

 which he had been studying since his first report upon it to the New York state agri- 

 cultural society in 1861. Goessman's results demonstrated the practicability of the 

 sugar beet, and also showed the comparative weakness of sorghum as a commercial 

 sugar plant. Had his teachings been followed, the present condition of our American 

 beet-sugar industry might have been reached ten or twenty years earlier. 



Liberal recognition is also due Lewis S. Ware, M E, editor of the Sugar Beet,, 

 also Henry Carey Baird & Co, its publishers, by whom that journal has been con- 

 ducted for 17 years, largely as a labor of love and as a patriotic duty in aid of this, 

 great industry that is now on the threshold of a mighty growth. 



Dr H. W. Wiley, chief of the division of chemistry, United States department 

 of agriculture, when in charge of the sorghum work, tried to make that enterprise 

 a success if possible, but as early as 1884 he investigated the sugar beet in California 

 and reported favorably upon it. In 1883, he urged that stations be established to 

 experiment with beet, cane and sorghum, but Dr Wiley says it was not until Sec- 

 retary Rusk's administration (1888-' 92) that he was allowed to carry out his plans.. 

 Then the beet station was established at Schuyler, Nebraska, for sorghum at Sterling, 

 Kansas, and for cane at Runnymede, Florida, later for all sugar plants at Union 

 Island, California. These were all abolished by Secretary Morton, the Florida sta- 

 tion going last in 1895. Dr Wiley's work is embraced in Bulletin 27, prepared in 1889. 



While the gentlemen above named and many others not mentioned, did much 

 in the early clays of the industry to promote it, the real impetus given to the beet 

 sugar industry as a practical commercial enterprise in the United States dates from 

 the time the Oxnards took it up late in the 'SO's. After large experience in the cane 

 sugar and sugar refining interests in the United States, Mr Henry T. Oxnard made a 

 special study of beet sugar abroad, and became convinced of its possibilities here. With 

 characteristic energy, enthusiasm and ability, Mr Oxnard spared neither labor nor money 

 in conducting a grand campaign of education, in the course of which he has expended 

 largely of his private fortune. He was also the organizer of the American 

 beet sugar manufacturers' association in 1891, and as its president has served 

 without salary and mainly at his own expense. Mr Henry T. Oxnard has 

 backed up his faith with immense investments in sugar factories, by giving 

 away many tons of beet seed, and is to-day the recognized head of the industry 

 in the United States. With the aid of his brother James G. Oxnard (a sugar engineer 

 of large practical experience), James G. Hamilton and others, the favorable legislation 



