32 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 
the machinery removed to California. 
Late in the ’70’s, beet-sugar factories were 
established at Portland, Me, Franklin, Mass, one in New Jersey, and another in Dela- 
A TYPICAL SUGAR BEET. 
This beet was selected for illustration herein from 
a lot of 57 tons of “mother beets” chosen for seed- 
growing purposes by the Utah Sugar Co. The 
above engraving is just half size. The original 
beet was 13 inches long, exclusive of an inch or 
two broken off the tip. It weighed 28 ounces and 
contained 17 % sugar, of 84 purity. For seed grow- 
ing, the top is left as shown, but for the factory, 
the butts of stems and woody matter forming the 
ova) top are cut off square and clean. 
BZ 
ware. In California, the Alvarado plant was 
established in 1870, and one at Sacramento in 
1873, and one a distance below that city at 
Istleton in 1874 or ’75. The two latter soon 
failed, and an attempt at Los Angeles, along in 
1878-9, never amounted to anything. 
ALL THESE EARLY ATTEMPTS FAILED 
for the reasons stated on Page 12 and also be- 
cause at that time other crops were so much 
more profitable that farmers would not grow 
beets, in the culture of which they were wholly 
ignorant. The then high-priced lands of the 
east, with the expensive manuring and labor 
involved in the crop, did not make sugar beets 
profitable with farmers. The factories, in the 
east at least, were not located so as to secure a 
large supply of beets from the immediate 
neighborhood, and high freights cut down the 
farmers’ returns. The factories were compar- 
atively small, and with a limited supply of beets 
of uneven or inferior quality, their operating 
expeuses left no margin of profit. 
Later, attempts were made to establish the 
industry in Canada, and a factory was established 
at Berthierville, Quebec, and another at Farn- 
ham, Quebec, but the French Canadians did 
not have sufficient enterprise to grow the beets, 
and with mismanagement of the factory, the 
industry languished in spite of a small subsidy 
from government. The Berthierville plant was 
removed to Eddy, New Mexico, in 1896, and 
the Farnham outfit to Rome, New York, in 
1897. The Dominion government encouraged 
the industry by a direct subsidy of (we believe) 
one cent per lb, but it was not continued long 
enough to overcome the indisposition of farmers 
to raise the beets, although the Farnham enter- 
prise got $44,000 from this source in the years 
1892-3, and Berthierville $41,000 in the years 
95-6. 
AN EXCEPTION--HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE 
The factory at Alvarado, California, started 
in 1870, is the first sugar factory which 
