Vol. LYII. No. 2551. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 17, 1898. 
SUGAR BEETS IN NEW YORK STATE. 
THE NEW FACTORY AT BINGHAMTON. 
The Present Status of the Industry. 
The Old Objections. —When in 1897 there was in¬ 
troduced into New York a new industry, the manu¬ 
facture of sugar from beets, there were many who 
attempted to discourage the promoters of the industry 
by advancing various reasons why the enterprise 
would not succeed. The principal arguments used to 
show that failure would result were: First, the farm¬ 
ers would not raise the beets. Second, we could not 
hope to compete with the cheap labor of foreign coun¬ 
tries where hands could be secured for 25 cents per 
day. Third, the yield of beets per acre would be so 
low that farmers could not afford to raise them at 
a price the factories could pay. Fourth, we had no 
skilled labor in this country competent to manage 
new factories, and imported experts would fail in at¬ 
tempting to handle American labor. Fifth, beets 
grown in this State would not con¬ 
tain a per cent of sugar high enough 
to insure sufficient profit to pay 
for their manufacture into sugar. 
Yet They 
Started. — In 
spite of these un¬ 
favorable predic¬ 
tions, the First 
New York Beet 
Sugar Co., Rome, 
N. Y., and the 
Binghamton Beet 
Sugar Co., Bing¬ 
hamton, N. Y., 
were organized, 
and are now in 
successful opera¬ 
tion, the Rome fac¬ 
tory making its 
second season’s 
run and the Bing¬ 
hamton factory its 
first. It is a mat¬ 
ter of interest to 
know how the dire predictions 
which were made have material¬ 
ized. The factory at Rome con¬ 
tracted for something over 2,000 
acres of beets, and the Bingham¬ 
ton factory had no difficulty in 
contracting for about an equal 
number of acres. In the vicinity 
of Lyons, where many farmers 
raised beets for the Rome fac¬ 
tory, they have been very suc¬ 
cessful, and there is no doubt 
that a sufficient number of acres 
could be contracted for in that 
immediate vicinity to supply the 
factory. The farmers who have 
grown beets for the Binghamton 
factory are, as a rule, well satisfied with the outcome, 
and consider the crop as a valuable addition. 
Cheap Foreign Labor. —In regard to competing 
with the cheap labor of foreign countries, it seems to 
be a case of American ingenuity and inventive genius 
against the world. The situation is well illustrated 
by a special report made by Chas. F. Saylor, of the 
United States Department of Agriculture. He says, 
“ It was the writer’s privilege during last Summer to 
examine a cultivator imported from Germany by a 
man who had come here from that country, where he 
had been a beet grower on a large scale, to embark ex¬ 
tensively in the growing of sugar beets. He was grow¬ 
ing at the time about 200 acres, and asked the writer 
to inspect the cultivator which, he said, was the best 
modern cultivator in Germany. It required-two horses 
to haul it, one man to guide or lead the horses, an¬ 
other to operate the guide wheel, and keep the cul¬ 
tivator straight in the rows, and a third man to 
manipulate the cultivator handles. Thus we see that 
to operate this cultivator required a heavy team and 
three men. Four rows of beets were cultivated at 
once, and the work was successfully done. The same 
afternoon, while looking over the beet farm, we dis¬ 
covered an up-to-date American-made cultivator. This 
cultivator was doing the work apparently as success¬ 
fully as the German implement, and was not nearly 
so cumbersome. It was drawn by one mule and 
handled by one man. It was cultivating four rows 
the same as the other cultivator.” 
As a result of extensive experiments made through¬ 
out the State by the 
Cornell Experiment 
Station, and from in¬ 
formation obtained 
from the Bingham¬ 
ton factory, there 
seems to be no doubt 
that an average of 
from 12 to 15 tons per 
acre will be realized 
by the farmers. This 
is a very conservative 
estimate, and when 
methods become bet¬ 
ter known, there will 
be no difficulty in making the yields average from 15 
to 18 tons per acre. On the Cornell experiment 
grounds this year, a yield of 20 tons per acre of top¬ 
ped beets was obtained. On this land no fertilizer of 
any kind has been used for five years, and the high 
yield is due to superior methods of tillage which have 
been practiced. 
Skill anti Quality. —The fourth objection which 
has been urged against the introduction of sugar fac¬ 
tories is lack of skilled men for managers. While this 
is one of the strongest objections, and one which will, 
no doubt, cause considerable trouble and expense to 
the factories, yet the trouble will be entirely over¬ 
come in a short time. There never has yet arisen in 
this country a demand for trained men in any special 
line which has not been met. Already some of our 
great universities 
are considering 
the matter of 
establishing sugar 
schools, and many 
young men are 
now mapping 
their course of 
study with a view 
of preparing for 
sugar experts 
should the devel¬ 
opment of the in¬ 
dustry warrant. 
The fifth objec¬ 
tion, that beets 
will not contain a 
per cent of sugar 
sufficient to war¬ 
rant their manu¬ 
facture, has been 
entirely disproved 
by many experi¬ 
ments and by prac¬ 
tical work at the factories. Hun¬ 
dreds of samples analyzed this 
year show that the beets contain 
from 13 to 18 per cent of sugar. 
All of the arguments which have 
been used against the introduc¬ 
tion of sugar factories in New 
York have been overcome, and it 
now remains simply to develop 
the industry, and there is secured 
for the farmers a new cash crop, 
and for capitalists a safe invest¬ 
ment. 
The Sugar Factory at Bing¬ 
hamton. — On a 
recent visit to 
Binghamton, I se¬ 
cured some photo- 
graphs of the 
sugar factory 
which will give 
the reader a fair 
idea of the extent 
of the works. The 
company was or¬ 
ganized with Mr. 
J. E. Rogers as 
president and 
manager. This 
seems to have been 
a wise selection, 
as the complete¬ 
ness of the works 
testifies. During 
the past year, an 
enormous amount 
of work has been 
SCENES AT THE BINGHAMTON BEET-SUGAR FACTORY. Fio. 383. 
