The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1897-04-02
TORE FOR THE SUGAR BEET.
Mr.. Editor:

Mr.. Editor:
In your reply of March 18th you
were frank in acknowledging that l
hit the matter all right when l spoke
of the value of a beet sugar factory.
Yes, l think SO, and so do great
many other farmers.
Now, Mr.. Editor and the people
of Mankato, you do not realize
what great benefit it would be to
start something of this kind, and if it
will pay so we'll in some places 1 can
not see why it will not do as we'll here
and especially when it is being advo-
Gated by our farming class.
In my first letter on the subject
made statement like this, what
benefit do our farmers derive from
the flour mills other than the privi-
lege of buying flour, or from the tub
factory, foundries, elevators and
packing house, as compared to the
large farmers" These were all built
with the aim of helping the farmers,
those who raise hogs, wheat, make
butter and need repairs on machin-
cry.
Now l shall endeavor to support
my statement and prove what 1 said
to be the gospel truth. 1 do not
agree with your statement that we
small farmers derive greater benefits
from these factories than the large
ones for this reason.
In the first place the employees of
these factories are married men,
working for small wages and family
to support, or small boy working for
still smaller salary helping to support
a widowed mother and likely some
smaller brothers or sisters or more
likely both, consequently do not have
the means to spare for anything more
than the plain, common living, such
as read, butter, meat and potatoes,
and if sauce at all they are of the
dried varieties or else that in ten and
fifteen cent tin cans that are shipped
in here and do not even benefit the
the fruit growers of the county.
1 acknowledge that we small far
mers furnish furnish some one or two
articles possibly one bushel in twenty
of potatoes and one hog in a hundred
of the meat. 1 can mention farmers
who had larger acreage of potatoes
than some men own altogether.
This is only two products out of the
four principal ones and the others can
not be compared on even as large a
scale. What can we do.toward fur
nishing flour when we have to buy,
or butter from couple of COWS as
compared to fourteen or twenty COWS.
I do not mean to say that we do not
have anything to market at all for
we do, but the quantity is so small
and prices so low that it is a starya.
tion living. Remember if we have
cows, chickens and a horse, they must
be fed and after their living is de.
Quoted the surplus for market is
mighty small.
We have few men who make it a
business to furnish Mankato with
their vegetables, few the milk and
a few the small fruit, now what are
the'others going to do. They cannot
divide up and help those just men
toned. If so they would all starve.
I'll tell you, open up sugar factory
this spring and you will see what they
will do, you will be surprised to see
how many Of our large farmers will
join US. have heard them say nv.
self that they did not know what to
plant, no money in grain and not
much in hogs or cattle, and when we
come to consider that one acre of beet
is worth from $3.50 to 5000 they will
not be long in deciding what to do.
l hope that the board of trade will
read this and note the meaning. Re-
member it is means for furnishing
labor in the city, call for more labor
hands on the farms, and start a /
source of wealth rotating that would
enable those in debt to pay up, an
increased trade for the merchants