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planted and supervise the growing of all beets by their field 
agent' The factory determines when the beets are ripe, by 
chemical tests of sample beets delivered by the grower, and 
directs when they shall be dug and delivered. 
THE LABOR PROBLEM. 
Perhaps the most serious problem involved in the grow- 
ing of sugar beets, is the large amount of hand labor required, 
a part of which, the thinning and weeding, must be done on 
the hands and knees. The topping of the beet is another 
tedious matter. The hand labor, on the knees in the dirt, 
is a factor which the average adult American farmer will 
personally reject. The natural inference, in seeing women, 
children, Germans, Russians, Chinamen, Japanese and Mex- 
icans doing this hand work, is that it x'i cheap labor, or foreign 
■contract labor, and that such cheap labor is a necessity to 
produce the beets and sugar at the current market price. 
The investigation does not warrant any such idea. It is not 
a fact. It is simply an humble occupation, rejected by those 
tillers of the soil who can do better in raising other special 
crops. The prices paid the Chinese and Japanese for work 
in the beet fields of California, are reported to be fully equal 
to Nebraska and Utah wages for similar work. The beet 
growers of Anaheim and Chino employ white labor exclu- 
sively and profitably. The price paid per day in the beet 
fields, is everywhere the same as that paid for other farm 
work. On contract work it often exceeds the ordinary farm 
wages, and it is reported that some Chinese laborers have 
made $3.00 per day in this way, on contract work in the 
Pajaro Valley. 
The beet-sugar factories in Nebraska faced this prob- 
lem in the first three years of their operation. It threatened 
their very existence, and endangered the million dollars 
invested. It was solved by bringing in Germans and Rus- 
sians from other parts of the state, who took the work gladly 
at current prices. 
It has been the serious problem to every factory, how 
to get the labor to raise the proper beet tonnage. At current 
Nebraska contract prices, of $4.00 per acre to thin the beets, 
and the same amount to top them, this pays $8.00 for hand 
labor, on every acre of beets grown. It requires work equal 
to one, person six days at $1.33 cents per day. Each Neb- 
raska factory requires the beets from 5,900 acres of land. 
Leaving out any hand hoeing, we have necessary then, for 
each beet-sugar factory, hand labor equal to that of 30,000 
persons for one day! All thinning too must be done in less 
