THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



137 



ing the area of other crops, it helps all farm values ; the beet requires good farming 

 and is an educator in thrift and does not rob the soil. 



To labor, the beet-sugar industry offers a new field for employment of both skilled 

 and unskilled labor of all ages, and pays a satis- 

 factory price for it in money that would other- 

 wise go out of the community and out of the coun- 

 try. 



To capital, it pays a fair return and under 

 proper management should prove an absolutely 

 safe investment. 



To other industries, the beet-sugar business 

 contributes largely. It builds up thriving com- 

 munities and gives new life to other industries. 

 It is roughly estimated that an investment of 

 upward of three hundred million dollars would 

 be required to build and equip a sufficient num- 

 ber of factories to supply the American market 

 with sugar, which vast sum would be distributed 

 among the mining, manufacturing, building and 

 machinery trades. The annual expenditure for 

 labor and materials, such as coal, lime, coke, bag- 

 ging, chemicals, oils, etc, would amount to mil- 

 lions of dollars. 



To real estate, the beet-sugar industry creates 

 value. Chino ranch lands that are now worth 

 $100 to 200 per acre were hardly salable at $80 

 to 60 per acre before the factory was located 

 there. Our attention has been called to a tine 

 tract of 30,000 acres of land in California which 

 can be "quietly bought up at $30 per acre and 

 after a factory is successfully established will be 

 worth at least $100 per acre." We consider this a 

 conservative statement. 



SOME CAUTIONS IX THIS INDUSTRY. 



No one state has a monopoly of the beet-sugar 

 industry. Some Nebraska farmers have an idea 

 that the business will be confined to their state 

 because it has two factories in successful opera- 

 tion. Such people have only to read this work 

 to be convinced of their error. Moreover, hun- 

 dreds of enterprising communities are anxious 

 many of these will doubtless do so. 



There are plenty of such communities in a 

 farmers are not only ready and eager to contract 



CROSS-SECTION OF A 

 SUGAR BEET. 



A section or cutting down through the 

 middle, showing the alternate rings or cylin- 

 ders of compact portions and those more 

 translucent, the former containing rather 

 more sugar, and the latter more salts and 

 albuminoids. The lower or smaller part of 

 the beet generally has a larger percentage of 

 sugar than the larorer upper Dart. Illustration 

 reduced from Bulletin 27, United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture. 



to secure beet-sugar factories, and 



dozen or twenty states where the 

 to furnish any reasonable quantity 



