10 INDIRECT BENEFITS OF SUGAR-BEET CULTURE. 



For centuries Europe had been cursed with sagebrush, gravel-pit 

 farming methods, such as our low crop yields demonstrate still are in 

 vogue to a great extent in the United States to-day, and while 

 Napoleon compelled the peasant farmers to grow beets whether they 

 wished to or not, his scientists and their successors developed scien- 

 tific agricultural methods, taught the French farmers how to cultivate 

 beets and other crop^s properly, and as the beet sugar industry spread 

 to other nations, their scientists and economists vied with the French 

 in this work, until now, in most portions of Europe, everything is 

 farmed properly, as is shown by their superior crop yields. 



At the time sugar beets were introduced in France, European 

 farmers were plowing but 3 to 4 inches deep, but the beet being a 

 deep rooter, compelled them to adopt deep plowing Cato's first 

 principle of good agriculture and as the benefits of it came to be 

 recognized, deep plowing became the custom in the culture of all 

 crops. 



European economists observed that following beets the roots of 

 cereal crops which theretofore had drawn nutriment from but 3 to 

 4 inches of soil now followed the interstices left by the millions of 

 decaying beet rootlets which were broken off when the beets were 

 dug, "and by drawing nutriment from double the depth of soil they 

 doubled their soil productivity without increasing their acreage. 



European agriculturists found that the frequent hoeings necessary 

 to the production of a beet crop rid their fields of noxious weeds, 

 and thus the full strength of the soil went to the crops they were 

 raising, instead of being drawn upon to maintain a growth which 

 was worse than useless. 



As a result of sugar-beet rotation in Europe it was observed that 

 where formerly it had been necessary to allow the exhausted soils 

 to lie fallow every fourth year in order to rest them and to tear out 

 the thick growth of weeds, they now could secure a heavy crop each 

 year. 



Once inaugurated, the growing of sugar beets rapidly increased 

 and soon became one of the most important industries in France, 

 that country since having produced 27,000,000 metric tons of beet 

 sugar. 



During the time that France has been producing 27,000,000 tons of 

 sugar for home consumption and for export, worth, at 4 cents per 

 pound, $2,364,000,000, our imports of sugar have risen from 50,000 

 to 2,500,000 tons a year, and during that period we have imported 

 67,000,000 tons of sugar at a cost to the Nation of $4,600,000,000. 



We raise and export the wheat from 6 acres of ground and use the 

 proceeds to purchase sugar which we could raise at home on 1 acre. 

 To-day it requires the gold we receive from all the wheat we produce 

 on 11,000,000 acres to purchase abroad the sugar we could produce at 

 home on less than 2,000,000 acres, and by so doing cease tilling 

 9,000,000 acres or use it for other purposes. 



The sugar we import contains no fertilizing elements, while each 

 bushel of wheat carries with it 17J cents worth of nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid, and potash, and the wheat we annually exchange for $180,000,000 

 worth of sugar carries with it fertilizer to the value of $30,000,000. 

 In exporting 5,000,000,000 bushels of wheat since 1867, and exchang- 

 ing it for sugar, we have robbed our soils of nearly $1,000,000,000 

 worth of fertilizing elements. 



