Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-03-09
Sugar Beet Facts.

In round numbers it costs the people
of the United States 800, 000, 900 every
year to pay for sugar made from sugar
beets, coming from foreign countries.
Germany, France and Austria have de-
veloped the sugar beet industry in such
a manner that they practically control
United States contains the richest sugar
beet lands in the world. This country
is the best customer of the countries
mentioned, the people consuming about
CD pounds of sugar per capita annually.
The total output of the factories o in
operation in the United States Is less
than ? per cent of the consumption, be-
ing under 49, 900 tons. Within the past
six years the production of Germany has
increased from 1,2O0, 900 tons to $780,
900 tons; in the same period but II
new factory has been built and actually
put into operation in the United States
and that is located in New Mexico.
That this state of affairs should exist
is almost beyond belief, when the push
and energy of the American people are
taken into consideration. But it will
not exist much longer. The tempta-
ton to keep 800, 600, 900 at home every
year will overcome the tendency to
slight an industry so important and
profitable. One cause of the great ex-
pansion of beet culture in Germany has
been the encouragement given it by the
government. With the same encourage
ment in the four years prior to the re-
turn of this country to protection, the
United States might have 700 factories
instead of seven. We might have sew
eral million acres c%ultiyating a staple
product, that is now employed in un-
profitable cultivation. We might have
employed several hundred millions Of
dollars capital and keep 500. 900, 900 q
year which we now pay out for beet
sugar. The main difficulty is not in
procuring capital to build the factories,
but it is to persuade the farmers to grow
the sugar beets. 1t requires some edu-
cation among the farmers for this grow
ing. 1t represents a higher standard of
agriculture than is employed in, the
growing Of corn or wheat, but is three
times as profitable.
The provisions Of the Dingley bill are
encouraging to sugar beet growers, and
the United States government, and par
ticularly the Republican administration,
are interesting themselves in the expan-
sion of the sugar beet growing industry
in this country. At an average of IL
tons of beets per acre, producing one
and one-half tons of raw sugar, it would
require 1000, 900 to 1,250,OO0 acres de-
voted to sugar beets alone to produce
the sugar now required for the United
States. This is exclusive of the present
output of cane sugar from the cane
| fields of the south. This cultivation of
1880, 900 acres would imply a c)rre-
spending withdrawal of that amount OF
land from crops in which there now is
no profit because of the prevalent low
prices of overproduction.
There is no section of the country
that will grow beets with as high a per-
centagc of saccharine content as New
Mexico. The tests made the past year
demonstrated that fact beyond any
question. The percentage of sugar ranges
from 14.5 to 22.5 in beets grown in and
around Santa Fe. The average in Ger
many is IL per cent, so that the New
Mexico grower would have the advant-
age of foreign competitors in more ways
than one in supplying the home demand,
while those engaged in the industry in
Santa Fe county would be better of
than all others.
1t is to be hoped that q deeper inter
est in this industry will be taken by the
people Of the territory. and particu'
larly by Santa Feans. Millions of dol.
lars could be brought into the territory
and thousands Of men given employment
II the rich lands adapted for the pur
pose could be used for the cultivation Of
sugar beets.