The National tribune., 1884-09-04
country, and refrain from further troubling
the land in the evening of his days.
RAISING OUR OWN SUGAR.


RAISING OUR OWN SUGAR.
In previous issues we have urged strenuously
the idea that the great need of this country is
for more grain-eaters. We have insisted that
our most urgent want is for more people within
grain; who will consume our surplus bread
stuffs and thus save to our farmers the cost of
transporting the same across the seas to find a
market, and who win return to the pockets of
our people much of the money they now send
abroad for foreign productions.
The foreign productions that we spend much
the most money for are sugars and molasses.
For convenience we will speak of all the sweets
simply as sugar" All civilized people are
great consumers of sugar, but our own eat
vastly more per capita than any other.
In addition to the considerable production of
Louisiana, we annually import nearly $780,
100000 worth, or 81 worth per head for every
man, woman and child, including Indians, in
the country. This is double the valuation of
any other import.
1t makes an enormous drain upon our circu-
lating medium. What aggravates the matter
is that it goes into the pockets of people who
pay relatively very little to us. We pay over
$80000,000 to Cuba and the other Spanish pos
sessions, who buy of US less than $2O,OO0,oo0-
that is, they get 81 in cash from US, where they
pay 81 back.
1t requires only the mere statement to show
that the farming community, and indeed every
body, would be richer if the immense sum of
$100,oO0,000 in cash were spent at home in
stead of being sent abroad.
In the early part of this century France,
keenly alive to everything that affects her ma
| tional economy, made earnest and finally sue
cessful efforts to check the enormous drain of
money to the tropics, and encouraged by
bounties the development of the manufacture
of sugar from beets. She was followed by Ger
many and Austria, who each encouraged beet
sugar production by bounties, and otherwise,
until now they, like France, not only raise all
their own sugar at home, but have so much to
sell abroad that they have broken the backbone
of the Cuban sugar business.
1t is rank folly for us not to pursue similar
course, and that energetically. We must, like
France, Germany and Austria, make sure that
our sweets shall be produced at home. The
policy Of the Government already favors this
| strongly-it should be made to do SO still more
| strongly. The protection given by import
duties has developt sugar-cane growing in
Louisiana, until we get about 13 per cent. oi
our sugar from there, but this is not enough.
The limit of production has been nearly
reached there. We must look to other sources
of supply.
These are already well indicated. Sorghum
is destined to supply the great bulk of the
sugar needed. 1t is in every way superior
Psugar producer to the beet, and its cul-
ture is well adapted to the habits and methods
of our farmers. It can be successfully grown
| in every part of the country, the To-day
variety ripening just as surely in Minnesota
and being jnst as rich in saccharine matter as
the slower growth produced farther South
| Our people have already demonstrated their
success in cultivating it, and experiments Of
the chemists of the Agricultural Department
show that the best grades of sugar and molasses
can be produced from it as cheaply as from
cane
All that remains now is for the Government
and the people TO unite in general effort tt
push forward the production of sorghum sugar
until it takes the place of that we now buy
from Cuba and other foreign peoples. The
matter has reached such an advanced stage
now that it viii be of relatively little difficulty
to make Us as Independent of foreign sugar a.
France, Germany, Belgium and Austria are