Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1902-12-02
OUR COLORADO LETTER.
MORE ABOUT THE GROWING BEET
SUGAR BUSINESS.

GREELEY, Colo, Nov. 81, 1902.
Editor Democrat
1t must be months ago that | wrote
you letter from this place stating that
the Greeley Beet Sugar Factory was
building three blocks from the home
that we have occupied for almost thirty
two years. That great factory is now
a reality running night and day and Sun
days and the toot of the whistle that
says more beets! More beetsr may
be heard at any hour of the night or day.
At night the electric lights twinkle in its
five stories and it has the appearance of
a magnificent palace lighted up for a
festival. Special train loads of beets
come in and farmers pass continually
with twO-hOrse and four-hOrse loads of
beets. This factory was supposed to
have a capacity of $50 tons of beets a
day having been guaranteed capacity of
200 day; but of late the coal has been
deficient in steam-making properties and
the pumps supplying water lacked
capacity and these things had to be
remedied. Last night the factory broke
its record by making during its twelve
hour run $50 sacks of sugar in TO
minutes.
In making this great bulk of sugar
more than 800 tons of beets were used,
and 90 tons of coal were consumed.
Several more factories are to be built
in northern Colorado and il looks as if
this is to become very great industry.
There are some reasons why the
farmers of this vicinity like the beet
raising business better than they ex-
pected to. The season has been a dry
one and never in many years has there
been so little water for irrigation. Now
lack of water at certain periods ruins
potato crop, while the beet withers up
for a season but when rains or irrigating
waters come, il starts right out doing
business like Carrie Nation in saloon
town. This characteristic of the beet
has somewhat endeared it to our farmers.
1t seems that more beetS were raised
than were expected and it may be Feb
ruary before all the beets are used up IN
this factory.
Thousands of tons of beet pulp are
elected from the works into the immense
silo and much of il is sold TO farmers at
80 cents a ton for feeding cattle. We
have over 100 head on this place and it
they have once been persuaded to eat it
by sprinkling it with corn meal. They
are so ravenous for it that these 100
animals will consume three tons in
single night and it does not seem to dis
agree with them if they have some
roughness to eat with it. 1t is hard to
imagins what goodness there is in it after
the IA or Is per cent sugar has been ex-
tracted, for that is the per cent that the
average Greeley beetS yield.
Now since it is true that Colorado
beets contain from Il to % per cent of
sugar, why may not some process be in
vented BY which the farmer can make
his own sugar in his own back yard?
Special wagons have been devised that
are self-dumping and that carry, some of
them, more than five tons of beetS.
Think of Greeley farmer hauling five
ton load of beets to the factory from
which fifteen sacks of sugar at least will
be made.
But there is one thing not so pleasant
about the sugar-making business. The
Loveland sugar plant has been in Oper-
alton for two years, the drainage from
the silo passing into the Thompson
creek. 1t is claimed that the abundance
of vegetable matter has rendered the
water of the creek milky white and so.
foul that stock will not drink it; and
moreover the stencil that arises is very
disagreeable. Some think that it may
a be cause of sickness in the future.
Already men are looking about for some
better disposition of the waste matter.
OLIVER HOWARD.