Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-11-27
SHALL THE CHANCE BE LET
SLIP?
ANOTHER CONFERENCE ON SUGAR
MAKING IN AUGUSTA

WILL
ANOTHER CONFERENCE ON SUGAR
MAKING IN AUGUSTA
Another conference was held by farmers
at the Court House Monday. on the sub
ject OF beet growing to supply a sugar fac
tory which Mr.. o. K. Lapham proposes to
erect here if sufficient supply of beets can
be guaranteed him. The attendance was
larger than at either of the former meetings
though the outcome of the conference was
not more promising than that Of the other
two.
Judge Charles Grattan was called to the
chair and made some remarks explaining
the situation.
MI w. N. Wilson from the Railroad
Committee, reported that the B. & O. offer
ed the same freight rates on the transpor-
tation of beets as the G. & 0.
MI. Lapham spoke of the importance of
securing the lowest freight rates at the be-
ginning. The rates offered by the two roads
mentioned were in some cases 10 cents or
20 cents a ton higher than those made by
the roads in Nebraska.
Mr.. Lapham in concluding said 1 am
going to grow beets here OF elsewhere. I
am going to make sugar here Oh elsewhere.
If l am not supported by the farmers of
this community, L will go elsewhere for my
own advantage, just as you farmers would
do for your advantage. 1t seems strange
to me that you farmers will continue to
put in crops which barely yield you sus-
tenance. I know this, for l have put Ill
crops i'll this county, and with the advan-
tage of having my own fertilizer from the
bark works, and yet find that can bare
ly make both ends meet. With my plan of
raising beets can make from $40 to $50
clear on al acre of the same land that /
have been able to make nothing on with
other crops. That is also the experience
of farmers in Nebraska. Abroad, in Eu-
rope, they grow beets for sugar on land that
costs ten times as much as our land here
and yet make money on it. The farmers
abroad have improved their land, improved
their own mode of living, gotten more of
the comforts of life by turning to beet Gull
tnre. They don't want to emigrate to
America; they had rather grow beet sugar
there for us to pay for. What we want to
do here is to grow beet sugar and sell it to
them over there. That is the natural
course of American enterprise. That is
what want to do, and 1 want to know in
a reasonable time whether you are going to
back up this industry by producing and
selling me the material 1 will have to work
on.
Judge Grattan.-At Harrisonburg last
week, while MI. Lapham and myself were
there, [ met Rockingham farmer who
told me that of a piece of land that cost
him SIS an acre, he put one-sixteenth of an
acre in beets and got one and a half tons
from that one-sixteenth, which is equal to
twenty-four tons of bects to the acre. The
farmer said that the product of no whole
acre of corn that he planted, fattened his
cattle as much as the beets from this little
sixteenth. This piece of land was planted
with beet seed that his congressman sent
him.
MI. w. II. Norman point would
like Mr.. Lapham to notice. The Commits
sioner at Washington has drawn line
which he calls the beet growing belt, and
from that fact the impression has grown
that beets could not grow South of that
line. MIR. Lapham tells me the height of our
land here was an offset to the difference in
latitude, and [ wish he would explain that
here so as to correct the impression.
MI. Lapham.- Wiley of the Depart
ment in Washington, the gentleman re-
ferred to, hunted through the districts in
Europe where beets are grown, for the
temperature and rainfall. He found the
average temperature to be from zoe to 72c
and the average rainfall 2 inches per
month. He then projected map of the
district in this country where that tenn
perature and rainfall prevailed, and drew a
line giving 100 miles each side of it as the
beet belt. But he did not say the beets
could not be grown outside of that belt,
but on the contrary that he felt sure they
could be. But the best test is actual ex-
pelience. We, here in Augusta, are some
200 miles below that beet line, but when
tried beet growing here 1 found that the
yield of sugar in my beets exceeded that Of
any part of the beet district except Nebras-
ka. With every l 800 feet Of altitude we
are carried North degrees Of latitude
which neutraliZes our distance, and we have,
besides, the advantage of earlier planting
and later culture. Even if our beets yield
ed 2 per cent. less sucrose than they do, d
be glad to make sugar at the present price of
it. l have letter from MI. Nicholson Of
Lincoln, Nebraska, in which he says that,
SOur work thus far has been mainly i'll
the way of demonstrating that beets
rich in sugar can be grown not only within
the lines laid down by the Department of
Agriculture some years ago, but also
throughout this State and others having
reasonably good soil and fair summer tenn
perature. In this we have succeeded be-
yond expectation"
Col. S. A East.-Bearing on the matter
of transportation, is it possible that part
of the work Of getting the sugar from the
beets may be done by the farmer and the
extract be sent to the factory-something
on the principle of the separators and the
creameries That would greatly lessen the
bulk to bear transportation.
MI. Lapham.- speaking from first
impression-I have not looked into it
should think not. Without costly mechan-
ical appliances you could not extract the
sugar from the beet. 1 should not think
the transportation would be drawback.
I get $500 tons of bark hauled to my facto-
ry from long distances and there is no COM
parison between the profit they get Oh the