The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1905-04-14
RAISE BETS THIS YEAR.
NORTHERN NEBRASKA FARMERS
HAVE CONTRACTED.
TRIPLE LAST YEARS ACREAGE

A Weigh Station viii be Established
at Norfolk to Handle the North Ne.
braska Beet Crop for Ames During
This Season.
Now that the plant of the American
Beet Sugar company which ran for
thirteen unlucky years in Norfolk has
been dismnntled and shipped bodily
To Colorado. removing from their
midst the wheels into which they for
merly were able to pour their beets,
the farmers around Norfolk and
throughout northern Nebraska have
scale than ever and contracts have al
ready been signed in this immediate
vicinity for almost three times the
acreage that was produced a year ago.
The bects which shall be grown in
northern Nebraska during the coming
summer will all be shipped to the
Leavitt factory at Ames, Neb., the
capacity of which has been doubled
in order to handle the crop that comes
from the territors that naturally be-
longed to the Norfolk plant.
one OF the visible potent reasons
for this remarkable increase in beet
raising now that marketing point
has been made eighty miles distant
is, perhaps, the fact that the Ames
factory will this year pay 25 cents
paid by the Norfolk factory in 1904.
The Ames people will pay S. per ton
fiat for beets delivered to them at
Norfolk and they will, themselves,
pay the freight from here to Ames.
In order to handle the crop they have
made arrangements to establish in
Norfolk a weigh station. The Nor
folk factory last year paid $3.50 fiat
per ton with 20 cents per ton extra
for hauling to the factory. The Ames
people will pay 20 cents per ton extra
for sliced beets, which is the same
rate paid at Norfolk last year for that
class of crop.
This, however, does not fully ex-
plain just why the acreage should be
increased three.fold over the con
tracts that the Norfolk factory was
able to secure for 1905, when the
American people offered for the com
ing season S. fiat. just as the Ames
people are doing 1t is fact, never
theless, that the American Beet Sugar
company were able to secure less
nf vi
cinity last year while the Ames COM
pany has already secured 900 from
Norfolk alone, with many hundreds of
acres more in other portions of this
territory. And by increasing their
price per ton over last years contracts
the Norfolk people were unable to Sc
cure enough new contracts for this
summer to guarantee q three months
campaign.
AS result of the lack Of beots for
the Norfolk factory its machinery has
gone 10 Colorado; and now that it has
gone, on the same offer, the Ames,
Neb., factory has had to double its
capacity so, that it can chop up beets
from $4,000 acres instead of the G,00C
Il had twelve months ago The ease
with which contracts have been given
! to the Ames factory is shown by the
fact that at Wayne, Neb., in one lay
$50 acres were secured.
Nothing definite has been done with
the 2iO acres of land, the boilers and
magnificent buildings abandoned by
the sugar plant here and given back
to the citizens who donated $150,O00
for bonus to secure the institution
here in 1891. 1t is heing offered as a
prize to some new industry.
AS a result of the peculiar situa-
tion, the puzzle that is confronting
Norfolk is, why weren't the beets
raised for the home plant?" 1t is evil
dent from the tripling of acreage that
under certain conditions some farm
ers in this section at least are willing
to devote a portion of their time to
beet culture. What 1t Is that has
wrought the change in so short a time
is quite an unknown quantity. The
question that has naturally arisen is,
Would it pay to start a new sugar
| factory here?" or "lf managed along
different lines during its lifetime in
Nebraska, could the Norfolk plant
have been made a success?"