Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-03-10
lancaster fntelIigemcer.
WEDNESDAY EvE'G, MARCH 10, 1880.
How to Save One Hundred Million Dol.
lars Year.

How to Save One Hundred Million Dol. |
lars Year.
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
Allusion has been made frequently of
late in this journal to various schemes un-
dertaken in different parts of the country
for the cultivation of the sugar beet and
the manufacture of beet sugar. But the
matter has received comparatively little
attention from the press generally ; and
outside of a narrow circle of thoughtful
persons no great amount Of interest Ill the
matter has been manifested by the public.
But we venture to make the assertion that
this indifference will not long endure a; that
it will give way, before many years elapse,
to full appreciation of the fact that the
experiments of beet-cuture in Delaware,
MARYLAND. and other States, are the first
steps in a movement of the highest i'm
portance, which will at not far distant
day sevOlutioniZe the sugar business.
There are two great facts connected with
this subject which ought deeply to impress
the mind of every American. One IS that
We pay nearly one hundred millions OF
dollars every year to foreigners for sugar
for VIC import more of that article than OF
any other one thing. The other IS what
we have the capacity to raise at home
not only our own demand, but that of the
whole civilized world.
AS for the former fact, there can be no
doubt at all that any device that will oper-
ate fairly to keep in the country the money
that is spent abroad will be of very huge
advantage to the nation. 1t will give to
our own people, to expend at home for the
enrichment of other Americans, the whole
of the profit which now goes into the pock.
cts of foreign planters and labOrers. 1t Will
increase that diversity of industry which Is
an essential of the prosperity of every
country giving new form of employ
ment to the population, and helping
to use up whatever of surplus labor
may be going to waste among us. 1t Will
be very profitable to farmers, and especially
to Eastern farmers. by giving the soil re-
lief, by increasing the possibility of rota-
ton Of crops and by enabling those who
find little profit in cultivating the cereals
to devote their attention to other products.
1t is not difficult to believe that we may
be approaching the time when, with the
Western states more closely populated, we
shall grow grain in such quantities that
it can hardly be disposed of. First
rate harvests all over Europe, with good
harvest at home. might produce such an
unpleasant complication at any time and
even under ordinary circumstances small
farmers. East and West, find that the
prices Of their grain are unpleasantly dc
pressed by the competition of the huge
farms of the far West. operated by large
capital. improved machinery and reckless
use of an unfertilized soil. 1t really seems
almost Ike idiocy for such state of things
to be permitted to threaten us while We
can raise At home. upon farms that are now
nearly prottless. a sugar crop for which
We are paying one hundred millions annu-
ally TO planters in the tropics.
The possibility of growing beet sugar
here unLer profitable conditions can nc
longer be REGARDED as problematical. 1t
has been grown in such manner upon ::
>-na.. >ca!e in dozen different states. and
there i nothing needed now 10 have the
business conducted upon large scale but
the stimulus which may be applied 10 the
farmers ty capitalists who will agree
- take their crops Of beets at d
fax price. The free traders would
class such al attempt under the head
oi artificial industries but beet culture l.
no more foreign u Us than it was to the
French peasants sixty years ago. and now
France has Su gar enough for export to en-
able her to supply England with forty pei
cent. of the sugar consumed by that coun
try. SuTar-beet culture has been intro
duced into Germany. Austria. Belgium
Holland and Russia precisely as W. wisl
to have it introduced here: ano
in each Of these countries it ha
been followed by results of the mos
satisfactory kind. 1t is, indeed a Yer,
odd circumstance that the enlightened, en-
ergetic and enterprising farmers Of th
United States should have been 50 Ion.
and SO far surpassed by men of the sam
class i'm the Old world. We cannot douh
that they will eagerly embrace the oppor
tunity to engage in the industry SO soon a
proof shall be given, by the large success
of single one of the sugar factories re
Gently started in this country, of the fac
that there is a chance for making money il
the business.