IV PREFACE, 



more, it would be a most enlightened measure of statesmansliip 

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

 cost. 



There is nothing more delusive than mere prices as expressed 

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

 to 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 effort 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 G-ermany, he is equally certain. If the publication of this 

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

 the eyes of the American people to the magnitude of the 

 interests involved, and in pointing out to them the true, 

 necessary, and fundamental principles upon which success de- 

 ][)ends— the proper selection and cultivation of the beet — the writer 

 will not feel that he has labored in vain. 



L. S. W, 



Phladelphia, Nov. 25, 1879. 



