Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — Beat Sugar Industry. [ARTICLE]

Beat Sugar Industry.

According to official reports the production of beet sugar is one of the ordinarily profitable branches of agriculture. The returns iye double those from wheat and many other crops. An acre of beets properly cultivated will yield about eleven tons. Eight hundred and six pounds of beets will produce one hundred pounds of sugar. There is a great deal of sirup residuum, which may be worked up into products of varying value. It is said that alcohol can be made at a high profit, which will add largely to the average net results from this source. Imperfect and undesirable portions of the crop may be fed with great advantage to domestic animals. According to careful computation it costs thirty dollars and sixteen cents per acre to get the crop into the ground and up to harvesting point, then something like eight dollars additional is necessary to gather the crop. It is hard work to grow beets. A gentleman who has made a study of their culture gives the following facts about them : “This is a peculiar crop. It cannot be raised in a slovenly fashion. It means work; it means intelligent, painstaking labor. It requires a much higher order of intelligence to grow beets than it does for wheat or corn. Every acre planted in beets means twenty days’ labor for one man. If two million acres of land are needed to supply this country with sugar, it follows that forty million days’ labor could thus be given to the laborers of the United States. It would also mean the transportation of twenty-six million pounds freight for the industry.”