The San Francisco call., 1897-09-26
BEET SUGAR TO
help LABORBRS
The Salinas Enterprise Will
Give Employment to a
Vast Army.
Thousands Will Find a Liveli-
hood in Field and
Factory.
A Monster Institution Under Way In
the Heart of Fertile
Valley.

c. S. Young, who has had extensive ex-
perience colonizing California lands, re-
turned yesterday from n trip OF several
DAYS to Salinas Valley. While at Salinas
he visited the site Of the Claus Spreckels
beet-sugar factory, now in process of erec-
ton. He says there are a bout 100 men at
work laying the concrete foundation for
the main building and the brick walls for
the engine-house and doing the excavat-
ing up in the vicinity of the large res
ervoir. In addition to this the steam
shovel used in excavation does the work
of about eighty men. Operations are
carried on night and oay and everything
around the new sugar factory is scene of
great activity. Mr.. Young made some in
teresting observations He says:
Few people can have any conception
of the magnitude of this enterprise. The
main building Is to be of brick; the d.
mensions 106x586 feet and five stories
high. The floor capacity of this building
alone will be seven acres. With the other
buildings, such as the Office, the sheds,
buildings for the boilers and hme-kiln
house, the storeroom, machine-shops,
blacksmlth-shop, plDer-room, carpenter
shop, and other structures, it will have a
total area OF over thirteen acres.
These buildings are within the site set
apart for that purpose, the site contain
ing 532 acres. The estimated cost Of the
site and Improvements is 50, 500, 900, an
amount equal to the cost ard equipment
of the Valley Road from Stockton 10
Fresno, a distance of 125 miles.
This beet-sugar factory, the largest in
the world, will have a crushing capacity
of 5000 tons OF beets daily. Estimate tif-
teen tons OF beets to the acre, the factory
Will crush each day crop OF beets raised
annually from 200 acres. To support this
factory there will be required a beet field,
if in one body, ten miles long and five
miles wide, or field a bali-mile wide and
100 miles long. Some idea of this enter
prise can be formed when it Is known that
the factories at WatsonvilIe, Chino Al
Varado and Anaheim, all com bined, have
q capacity of $3.50 tons per day, or fifty
tons less than the factory al Salinas will
have; in other words, the factory at
Salinas will have a crushing capacity OF
fifty tons of beets more than all OF the
other four factories combined in the State
of California.
"There will be employed in this factory
between 500 and 700 men. and James
Bardin of Salinas estimates that there will
be forty and half times the mum Der of
men employed in a field OF beets than
would be employed to do the work III an
ordinary wheat field of the same size
This Insures mpioyment in the fields and
factory OF several thousands of working
men and the construction in the near
future of hundreds of homes.
The contract price Of beets is 81 per
ton. The average tonnage per acre Is esti-
mated at fifteen, or a gross profit of about
$50 per acre. Sometimes the profit is
much larger than this amount. One man
told me Ill Salinas that in one year on 225
acres he realized net profit of $l3,3J 90,
or an average of $50 % per acre.
The amount OF sugar estimated to be
produced on 10000 acres is enormous, as d
few figures will demonstrate. Assuming
fifteen tons to be an average yield per acre
and Is per cent as the saccharlne matter in
the beet there would be produced annually
from this acreage 162 900 pounds of
sugar. The amount will be better appre-
GATED when it is known that it will take
500 cars to transport this TO the market,
or it will take 405 freight trains of twenty
cars IN each train. AS the average length
of car is thirty-seven feet this annual
output of sugar, if loaded on a continuous
train of cars, would require a train fifty
seven miles long. Assuming the weight
of sugar 10 be ffty-five pounds per Gu bic
foot this annual output OF sweetness would
cover an area equal to tielG of sixtY- six
acres to depth OF twelve inches
salinas is town of about 1000 people :;
its climate is almost exactly ike that OF
San Francisco. 1t is well laid out, has bi-
luminous streets, a street railroad in pro-
cess OF construction, several frst-class
hotels. fine courthouse and other public
buildings. There are no dwellings nor
stores vacant, and already there is a great
demand for five and ten acre tracts for
homes. 1t is believed that within the
next three years, or as soon as the factory
-. fv,iI C,1T
population OF Il, 900. Within the last few
years my business has called me to nearly
all the towns of California, from the
northern limits of the State to San Diego.
In these visits l have seen no town of the
size of Salinas that has like prosperity
or so good a future.
II learned also while at Salinas that it
is not true that all of California is for
sale. Few people in the vicinity of Sa-
hnas will name any price for their land.
+. H. Lang, the most prominent real estate
dealer in Salinas Valley, told me that from
Pences to Moss Landing, a distance of
twenty miles, there could be- purchased in
all, outside of the lands of the German
Colonization Association of California,
not to exceed 500 acres. He said also that
the price OF this land referred TO, was in
no case less than $100 per acre, the price
generally ranging from 500 10 $3.50 per
acre.
CLAUS Spreckels has purchased recently
there about 5000 acres, in prices ranging
from $50 TO $3.50 per acre. His investment
IN land alone amounts to about $500, 600.
81 know OF no point in the State of
California where it is so difficult TO buy
real estate, where so few ranches are
mortgaged, and the ranchers so weil-to-do
as in Salinas Valley. 1t is expected that
there will be large influx of settlers
thither within the next few months.
largely so influenced by the erection OF
the sugar factory.
Within the next few weeks, theGerman
Colonization Association of California will
have from various points in the East.
settlers on their lands not fewer than $50
families. Already fifty or sixty families
have lett various points from the East and
are expected to arrive there next Sunday.
Altogether, my visit to Salinas was most
satisfactory, and convinced me that at
least there is one point in the State OF
California where the wave of prosperity
has reached"