The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-03-24
iowa BEET SUGAR
States Productive Capa.
city Discussed.
New Secretary of Agriculture Ad-
Vocates Protection Tariff
for Sugar.


Iowa, on February Sth, to discuss the
development of the beet sugar industry
in that State. Members of the, State
Legislature and other prominent citi-
zens were present. Among them was
President James Wilson of the Iowa
Agricultural College, now Secretary of
Agriculture in President McKinley's
cabinet At the time of the meeting he
had already been appointed to the Sec
retaryship. The Louisiana Planter
gives the following account of the de-
liberations:
The meeting was presided over by
Governor Drake, who introduced Pro-
fessor Wilson, who was the chief speak
er of the evening. During the past six
years Professor Wilson and his associ-
ates in the Agricultural College at
Ames have done much excellent work
in the determination of the adaptibility
of the soils of Iowa to the successful
production of sugar beets, and he made
the work done at Ames the basis of his
remarks at the meeting. Professor Will
son said that he believed it was only
a question of time when the people
of Iowa would make their own sugar,
and that the resources of Iowa in this
direction were sufficient to supply the
United States and to afford a consid-
cradle quantity for export.
He advocated that we should produce
at home all we can, and that we quit
sending abroad money for sugar. He
believed that a proper development of
our own resources should include, if
not begin with, the development of our
agricultural resources, chief among
which it was evident that sugar now
stood. In the development of the sugar
industry he said that he believed he
saw the way out of our present de-
pressed conditions, some of which in
Iowa were attributable to the too close
attention TO one crop. He believed in
diversified farming. They had concen-
trated their work upon wheat and had
failed; they had devoted their ener-
gies to pork and had met with reverses,
and now they are confronted with the
fact that they are raising too much
corn. He though they should have not
too much of one thing, but great
deal of a number of things, and beet
sugar is one of the possibilities in
this direction.
Professor Wilson's claims for Iowa
almost equal ours for Louisiana, when
he says they have more and better of
everything than any other State; that
they have better farms and better peo-
pie and better cities and better schools,
better boys and better girls, and are
better fed than any other people on
the fact of the globe. He. claims, in
short, that in Iowa they can be the
biggest and best sugar producers, if
they go at it as they should.
One point that Professor Wilson
raised, wherein he is in close accord
with the sugar industry in Louisiana,
he expressed in the following words:
when Congress protects the farm
interests as it does the factory inter-
ests of the East, and puts tariff on
sugar, I believe that the manufacture
will commence in earnest, and / do not
believe that time is remote, for | feel
that it will be one of the first acts of
the new administration to restore the
protective tariffs. With this and CO.
operation on the part of the legislators
and business men. the farmers will get
along, and l want to say, in conclusion,
that they will find it to their interest to
aid the farmers"
Professor Wilson was followed by
Professor J. r. Sage of the weather
service, who discussed the meterologi-
cal conditions of Iowa, who claimed, in
conclusion, that there was no better
climate for sugar beets than that of
Iowa. He said that thus far expert
ments had proved the Iowa beet to be
superior to that of Nebraska, where
two of the pioneer sugar factories were
located.
Professor Curtis was the next speak
er. who spoke of general advantages
'hat Iowa presented, and advocated in
~Nrt tie development of root culture
~crcrGlly in this country, the great
'orcf of which have been demon
stratod in Canada and England. He
believed that root crops could be rails
ed - Iowa with as much certainty as
con crops, and that the results would
be more satisfactory.
Professor Meyer was the next speak
er. who stated that in Germany there
was a land tax of S12 an acre, a beet
tax of 50 a ton, and other elements of
cost which gave America large advant-
ages in the way of beet production. He
spoke of the cheapness of coal in this
country. and advocated a plan by which
the beet farmer would acquire an in
terest in the factory until he comes to
own it, which will thus stimulate him
to raise better beets in the interest of
his dividends. He said that if he had
had the location of the OXnard fac
tories they would not have gone to
Nebraska, but to Iowa, because of the
better conditions prevailing there.
The whole meeting was quite sue
cess and created increased interest in
the sugar industry, and will doubtless
result in some definite action at all
early date.
On the morning of Feb. 20. 1895. !