The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-05-17
THEY FAIL TO APPRECIATE.

OF all the instances of the failure of
farmers to appreciate the self-sacrific-
ing, disinterested, arduous efforts of a
certain class of politicians and lay phi
1anthropists in their interests, for their
welfare, we are quite sure this beet
sugar effort of the legislature of Min
nesota takes the BOBBY prize. The labor
of the mountain has brought forth
nothing larger than a measly little
mouse. The proportion of preparation,
expectation, exploitation and appropri-
alton to realization bears about the
proportion that wart on Ossa would
to Ossa. Here it is the middle of May,
and there are applications in for but
about 400 of the $4,000 pounds Of beet
seed bought in Germany and sent post
haste to Minnesota, and of these but
about sixty are from farmers, the rest
being mostly from members of the leg
tsHture who feel that they must lend
a'helping hand in addition to voting
the $4,000 appropriation
IL is about as pretty a piece of pa
ternalism as we have ever seen come
to grief 1t lacked but one feature TO
nEake it as perfect as the federal sugar
bounty job or the Dingley scheme: it
provided no compulsory process for
working the necessary farmer. It sub
st1tuted lure for pressure and sought
to catch him with comparisons of his
Improbable 1abors in growing grain or
raising meats with the splendid profits
to be made in growing beets for the
factories that would convert them into
sugar. Five dollars ton for beets.
twenty tons to the acre, beet seed at
half-price; labor, done by the farmers
family, nothing; SIS to $1OO an acre
clean profit. Meetings were called and
addressed by the paternal promoters.
pamphlets were printed and scattered
by the thousand, experimental stations
experimental and reported, and Mime
sofa was to be made the great sugar
supplier of the universe. From having
been the granary of the world it was
~ "SSO1i4S I'D SuScI DOWl.
So $4,000 of good money was taken
from the treasury and $4,000 pounds
of German beet seed ordered by Cable
to be sent express, to be sold to the
farmers at II cents a pound, just what
1t cost the state, accompanied with a
tWitter of apprehension lest that GUAM
tity should be insufficient to meet tho
rush of orders from farmers anxious to
reap the handsome profits to be made
IN raising beets. And orders from
farmers for only sixty pounds are in.
or, assuming that the LEGISLATORS ara
ordering for their constituents, only 400
pounds called for, leaving the treasury
the embarrassed possessor Of some
24,6O0 pounds Of choice sugar beet seed
fresh from Germany, duty paid and
offered at cost. Three thousand dollars
of the $1,000 gone into seed, gone f.
seed, and $4,000 left for incidentaIs. Did
ever a great state go through so much
to get so little?
And why this apathy, this unrespon.
siveness, this lack Of appreciation of
all this paternal interest in the well
fare Of the poor farmers on the part
OF the poor farmers themselves? There
ARE two reasons. Farmers, that is some
Farmers, may be fooled with home mar
tkets and all that sort of bait for catch
ing votes, but they know something
Iabout raising beets. They have raised
them in their gardens. They know the
Eperversity of beet seed in refusing 10
terminate, the back breaking work OF
splanting, transplanting and wedding
3nvolved in even a garden patch, and
they do not look on the Job of spread
ling such a. task over acres with eager
mess to engage in it, And then where
are the factories to take the beets next
September or October and pay for
them? Another reason may be that the
farmers suspect that they are being
worked again for another kind Of man
ufacturers benefit They know that
the state is pledged to pay the sugar
maker, not the farmer, cent a pound