Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-12-11
HALF a MILLION POUNDS.

| AhAP n 1M1ALIOU IOONDO.
1t is now certain that the sorghum
sugar output at Medicine Lodge, this
season, Will exceed 5OO, OO0 pounds. Il
was thought, until this week, that il
would not exceed 10000 pounds, but
the seconds" are much richer than was
anticipated.
This places the plant at Medicine
Lodge at the head of the list, as the
nIJst successful one ever built. 1t has
paid every dollar due for cane and la.
Dor, and does not owe one cent on &C.
count of the seasons work. Yesterday
there was shipped from here SEVEN
CAR LOADS of sorghum sugar, to New
Orleans. In the mail yesterday came
an order for 600 barrels of sugar, but
the order could only be partially filled.
Mr.. Hinman says that he is satisfied
from the correspondence he has receiy-
ed, that he could place ten thousand
barrels of Medicine Lodge sugar if he
had it. People are dropping their pref
udices, and are now willing to acknowl-
edge that sorghum sugar is better than
ordinary light brown sugar.
1t is certain now that the works here
made good money this season, notwIth-
standing the delay IN starting, and the
frequent accidents that occurred. Our
people all regard the industry as sue
cess. The cane-raisers are all anxious
to contract to raise cane next year. 1t
pays twice as much as can be made on
corn, oats or wheat.
There appears to be disposition to
class all sugar plants in Kansas toGeth-
er, and it looks very much like the sugar
trust had active allies in Kansas, who
are laboring to belittle the sorghum SUI
gar industry. Because the plants at
Liberal, Meade, ArkalOn, Minneola and
Ness City could not start, for want of
water or cane; because the Fort Scott
cane fields were three times flooded and
very greatly injured; because Conway
Springs and Attica were short of funds,
and did not pay for the cane or for the
labor employed, are no real arguments
against the industry. When a sorghum
sugar mill is properly built, on a suita-
bic site, with plenty Of pure water &C.
cessible, in locality that will raise cane
with sugar in it, and is conducted by
those who are willing to risk their own
capital IN the enterprise, and pay their
honest debts, it will succeed, as the
plant at this place has demonstrated.
On the other hand, il townships and
municipalities let a lot of adyenturers
load heavy bonded debt on them, and
attempt to operate the plant on the
funds voted by the people, and, besides,
pay for the building and machinery out
of the same funds, of course there will
be trouble. At two of the plants that
partially failed in Southern Kansas this
season, all of the money received from
the sale of sugar and syrup was applied
to debts due by the construction COM
panies at the banks; when, as matter
of justice, the laborers who built the
mills and made the sugar, and the far
mers who furnished the cane, should
have been first paid.
The action of the state board of agri-
culture in warning the western coun-
ties against the indiscriminate voting
of sugarworks bonds, is timely, and
Secretary MOhler should not be tlmld
in telling his constituents the truth and
the whole truth.
There is no more sense in a high and
dry county or township voting money
to build a sorghum sugar plant than
there would be in voting bonds to es-
tablish line of steamboats, through
their sand-draws or dry canyons.
If it were possible, the state should
take steps to prohibit the wild voting
of bonds that is now going on. 1t will
prove the ruin of many townships, and
will do the legitimate sorghum sugar
business great injury.