- 40 - 
ton; over 30 and not over 40 miles, 60 cents per ton; over 40 
and not over 50 miles, 80 cents per ton; switching- charges 
$2 per car added to these rates on latter line. All beets in 
i8q7 were grown inside the 45 mile limit. 
The factory employs 200 hands, on two shifts, of twelve 
hours each. A few boys are employed. Common factory 
wages are from $i.c^o to $2 per day. Skilled labor from 
$60 per month upward. The employes are paid every two 
weeks, in cash. There are no company stores. All busi- 
ness is done through the local banks. 
The factory uses about 12,000 gallons of crude oil 
(Eastern) per day, for fuel in generating steam for power 
and other factory uses. This is two tank cars of 6,000 gal- 
lons each. Two men do all the work in the boiler house, 
where fourteen were required up to 1895, when coal was 
used. Cost of oil was not given, but the manager says that 
bituminous coal, within fifty miles of a factory, would be 
cheaper than the fuel used at either Norfolk or Grand 
Island. About fifty tons (three cars) of lime rock are used 
per day. This comes from Nemeha county, Neb., near 
Plattsmouth, some 100 miles distant. Cost not given. 
About a car load of sulphur is used each season. 
The same forms of contracts are made with farmers for 
growing beets there and at the Grand Island factory. 
There are about 500 beet growers supplying this factory. 
They average some ten acres of beets each, making about 
5,000 acres in all. The largest growers are: The Hum- 
phrey Sugar Beet Co., of Humphrey, Neb., 200 acres; H. A. 
Pasewalk, Norfolk, Neb., 90 acres; Conrad Wagner, Hadar, 
Neb., 50 acres, etc. A large part of the beets reach the 
factory by rail — some 1,200 acres being grown by 82 farmers 
in Platte County, south of Norfolk. 1,100 acres of these 
beets averaged 7.8 tons per acre yield. 
Beets are received by the company on cars where 
loaded, so the factory stands any freezing en route. The 
frozen beets are all right if worked before they thaw. No 
beets for this factory are grown by irrigation, but contracts 
have been made for beets to be raised near Monroe, Platte 
County, by irrigation in 1898. In 1897 the yield of beets 
was greatly reduced by a drouth. In the early history of 
this factory, 1891 to 1893, it had to grow a large part of 
its own beets. Out of 2,500 acres of beets used in 1893, i>500 
acres were grown by the company, on rented land. 
The farmers are largely Germans with some Russians, 
they retain largely the old country manner of dress and liv- 
ing, and women and children work with the men in the 
