The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1879-03-07
For tie 1Egts d. Mtelhgencer
Cultivation of the Sugar Beet.

wish to call the attention ofthc farmers
of Hartford county to the raising of sugar
heets, for the purpose of making sugar, and
shall make some extracts from an address of
Prof Gennet, Manager of the Maine Beet Su-
gar Company of Portland, before the State
Agricultural Society of New York. He said
the beet sugar industry has, since it assumed
the proportion ofan industry at all, developed
to such an extent wherever it has been intro
duccd, that it is considered, in most countries
in Europe, the most important industry; and
as the consumption of sugar not only increas-
cs with the increase of population, but also
with the progress of civilization, it cannot I've
surprising that this interest has assumed, in
less than fifty years, such gigantic proper
TONS AS the whole beet sugar industry is
decidedly of an agricultural nature, we have
to treat il as such, and we will soon find that
the greatest, and in fact the only difficulty
to be overcome TO the successful production
of one hundred million dollars worth Of sugar
in the United States, is the raising of the sll-
gar beet-which every farmer can do. II
must be accepted as a principle, that what
one farmer does under ordinary conditions,
another can; and what ten farmers can do,
ten, twenty and hundreds more can do, under
the same conditions if they will only try.
What, then, has been the results obtained
by many farmers of Maine, who have tried to
raise sugar bcets during last year? There
must he $4,000 farmers in the State of Maine.
Almost every one can raise the sugar beet
Suppose 10000 of them raise each one acre of
beets-say 20 tons. They would grow then
100000 tons, yielding S2,O0O,O 600 to the farm
ers. This crop would make at least 10000
tons of sugar, or eighty million pounds, worth
six million four hundred thousand dollars
Here is an extract from the Register Of
RuraJ Neacs:
Smith e. Powell, ofSyracuse Nursery, have
given us the measurement of crop OF bcets
raised in 1876, on one acre OF land, OF % tons
to the acre Others have Is, 90, 3d. 40 tons,
and even as much as 60 tons to the acre. So
the average crop would be put at 90 tons per
acre These, at five dollars per ton, would
he the best crop farmers could raise; and this
price the Maine Sugar Beet Company are pay
ing, delivered at railroad stations, while they
pay freight to their place of manufacture
cannot say how far they would be willing to
go for them at this price.
Prof Gcnnet says: THE question of the
complete financial success OF the Maine Beet
Sugar Company, therefore, was and is center
ed in the supply of beets. If this company
had had about 60 days supply of hects, il
would have earned profit of not less that 90
per cent
Every farmer will have hard work and very
small returns for present crops raised in this
State So if we can turn our attention to the
raising of sugar beets, and have mandatory
at some convenient point for our crop, /
think each farmer could plant one acre of
bects. If for the first year there would be no
sale for them, our cattle and stock would en-
joy them amazingly; and even for food it
would pay. .
A letter from Prof Gennet says: Soon
you will see beet sugar factories in Baltimore,
which will offer sure market for beets."
| hope this important matter may come be-
fore the farmers clubs of the county, and lam
satisfied from the many intelligent farmers
that / have had the pleasure of meeting with,
that they will see the importance of this sub
icct. DUBLIN.