The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-12-12
BEETS IN
AMERICA

down into a coal car.
Last year the ROCKFORD company
about 100000 bags of sugar,
each Weighing about 100 pounds. 1t is
all bought by the sugar trust, and the
prices are regulated in New York.
Everything connected with beet farm
ing can be done by machinery, except
wedding and thinning the plants and
picking up the beets. The seed is sown
with a seeder; the weeds between the
rows are kept down and the soil is kept
loose by Cultivators the beets are dug
by horse power; but so far human in
genuty has not been able to provide
any device for wedding among the
plants, or thinning them out where they
are too thick. That has to be done by
the hands of human beings on their
knees. and it is the great drawback to
the industry. The Independent Ameri-
can citizen will not spend the day on
his knees. and he will not allow his
wife or daughter to do so, hence there
is great difficulty i'm getting anybody
to do this back breaking work. About
500 Mexican and Indian men and wo-
men are brought up from the pueblos
from as far away as Eel Paso and CAL
lup i'm wedding time, bringing their wo-
men and children, and stay until after
the Cantaloupes are picked and shipped,
about two months altogether, and are
paid from 1928 to $3.50 an acre for
wedding and thinning beets. A Pueblo
Indian or half-breed Mexican, with his
wife and children, can do from one to
three acres a day, according to the size
Of the family and their industry. The
sugar company sends out agents in the
spring to gather them up, pays their
railway fares and provides quarters
for them to live in.
Behind the ROCKFORD factory is one
of the biggest irrigatng systems in the
United States, owned by THE Arkan-
sas Valley Sugar Beet and Irrigated
Land Comuany," composed of H. b.
Hyde of the Equitable Life Insurance
Company, the Mercantile Trust Com
pany of New York, the OXnard Broth
ers. and other eastern capitalists. 1t
has $4,000 acres of reservoirs, $50 miles
of main canal and $50 miles of laterals,
covering an area of about 100000 acres,
which the company has purchased in
small tracts from the railway, the state
and from tired farmers who tried to
farm with rain and failed There are
now about 10000 acres under water
and $4,000 acres more can be reached
by the extension of this system.
The next largest plant is the Fort
Lyon system, Immediately west, which
was organized by Y. c. Henry of Kan
sas, and sold to the farmers after all
the land was disposed Of 1t has about
co. 900 acres, watered by 113 miles OF
canals, divided among about $50 farm
ers. The largest irrigated area in one
location is on the Platte river in north
ern Colorado, but it is operated by a
number of Independent companies.
The man who started the Arkansas
valley irrigation system made a failure
of it, and the property came into the
hands of the present owners unwilling
ly by foreclosure. They had to put in
more money to save their investment,
and have continued to do so during the
last six years, until they have invested
several millions in land, bitches and
improvements. They have sold about
30 600 acres, all of the way from $40 to
$3.50 an acre, according to location, and
that is a big price for raw land with
no improvements except water. The
lowest price of raw land is $40 an acre;
the lowest price at which cultivated
land has been sold lately is $50 an acre.
Every acre has to pay so cents a year
for water. A man can buy a farm of
forty acres for 81, 500 in semi-annual
payments, with interest at per cent,
and by paying 800 a gear water rent is
insured against drought.
With irrigation that forty acres will
produce as much as any ordinary 1867
acre farm without irrigation, and in
deed, the company insists that nobody
can profitably handle any larger tract.
1t will not sell more than forty acres to
any one buyer. There are now about
$50 farms within the irrigated district.
The largest 800 acres, belongs to j. c.
Moss, who was one of the earliest buy
ers, and got his land before the prop
erty passed into the hands of the pres
ent owners. The Salvation Army has
!, 100 acres at town called Amtty, up
on which it has located a colony of
about 400 people. Two other towns,
Holy and Granada, are dependent on
the company for water.
There is room enough on the irrigat-
ed area for a thousand farms and a
general population of 10000 or 1900.
Any staple will grow. Sugar beets are
the surest and most profitable, all
things considered, and will pay any
where from $25 an acre, according to
the skill and industry with which they
are cultivated. Cantaloupes will pay
more, often as high as $3.50 an acre, but
they are a speculative crop and often
uncertain both i'm quantity, price and
market. Alfalfa will average better
than canteloupes year in and year out,
according to the testimony of the farm
ers. 1t is always in demand in Texas,
Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona at
profitable prices, and requires less la
Dor than any other staple. Apples,
peaches and other fruit pay well, but
require five and six years to reach the
bearing age. There is a steady, profit
able market for all kinds of vegetables
and a wise farmer divides his interests
and avoids the error of carrying all of
his eggs i'm one Ia glypt He will have q