The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-12-18
THE PHILIPPINE
BILL.
Continued from Page One1

CONTINUED from Page One1
our honora BILE and astute Secretary O.
State to the deplorable trade condition.
! existing between this country anG
Central and South America, for since
we removed the duty on coffee and rub
Der we have lost our $50 million dol
lars of revenue on our importation from
! Brazil alone, and our adverse trade
balance with that country has amount
ed to over $3.50, 000, 600. The total
| value of our 1905 exports to the West
Indies, Central and South America
Asia, Africa and Oceanica combined
including Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii
and the Philippines, amounted to sew
eral million dollars less than what the
American people expended the same
| year for the one item of sugar.
On October 18th of this year Mr..
| James ]. Hill delivered a notable ad-
| dress to the Commercial Association of
| Chicago.
If Mr.. Hill had mentioned the humble
sugar beet as the most important fac
| tor in creating the conditions which
! he outlined, as being necessary to our
future prosperity, his remarks would
| have pointed no more specifically to
million dollars have been invested in
! the sugar industry of the transmissis-
sippi territory, and the lessons they
have taught, from Minnesota on the
east to California on the west, and
| from Montana and Washington on the
north to Arizona on the south, all tell
| the same tale. The necessarily inten-
sive farming to make the crop a sue
| cess makes good farmers out of shift
less farmers; it makes rich farmers
out of poor farmers; it makes pros
porous towns and merchants and bank
erS and professional men in former
ly listless communities; it enhances the
value of town property and it doubles
and quadruples the value of all farm
property. On February 18th last the
honorab BILE Secretly of Agriculture
wrote me as follows:
In the United States beet culture
has occasioned q large increase in the
value of farms devoted to that crop.
Recent returns received by the depart
ment as to the value of farm lands in
1905 as compared to their value in
1900, show an increase in the five years
mentioned in the sugar farms of the
north central states of $11.S9 per acre,
and in the sugar farms of the western
states of no less than $40 40 per acre.
For the entire country the average in
crease in the value of sugar farms was
$12.34 per acre. an increase which ex-
ceeds that of all other classes of farms
except fruit FARMS.
WESTERN SUGAR FARMS.
The fact is that the increase in value
of western sugar farms from 1900 to
1905 exceeded the total average acreage
value OF farms and farm implements
in every state in the Union except six
in 1900, according to the census returns.
Take the case Of Garden City, Kansas.
Senator Swink told me last night that
when he went in there three years ago
land, including ditch rights, was SELL
ing at Sc to $3.50 an acre; that a year
or two ago the best farms were selling
at $12 to $13 an acre, and now that their
new 100000 beet sugar plant is in OPP
Grafton these same lands are eA%tt
fl ON $50 an acre up. This factory Will
consume the beetS grown on 1000 acres.
and with a five-year rotation means
that the values of $4,000 acres of land
have been increased $50 per acre, or a
total added farm value of a million and
three-quarter dollars; and the farm
ers, after paying 81 to $3.50 per day
for field labor, are clearing from $50 to
$50 per acre, while the average gross
returns of American wheat and corn
farmers is less than S12 per acre.
OF course we are not all farmers. We
have great population in Kansas City
in st. Louis, in Omaha, in Des Moines
in Minneapolis, in Denver. in Salt Lake,
in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Port
land. Seattle, Tacoma and hundreds of
smaller cities in the transmissiSsippi
territory, which are directly affected
by the growth of this industry, while
the cities of the southern transmissis-
sippi territory draw tribute from the
cane sugar industry of Louisiana and
Texts
The sugar beet farmers of the trans
mississippi territory will derive from
twenty 70 twenty-five million dollars
from their present crop of sugar beets,
and practically every dollar of it will
drift back through our commercial cen-
ters. Take the case of Oxnard, Cali
forna. When the American Beet Su-
gar Company went in there to erect
a two a1d q half million dollar plant
there was no population whatever. To-
day it is flourishing town of $500
people. The beet farmers within a
radius of thirty miles of that factory
will receive over million dollars for
their present crop of beets, and the eX-
IenditUres for labor coke, mill sup
plies. fuel. etc, will amount to another
million dollars. Is it any wonder that
this makes a prosperous community
which enriches the larger nearby COM
mercial centers?
And as to the effect on the railroads.
L. st year the Southern Pacific received
over 100000 from it's OXnard office,
there being but four points between
SAN Francisco and Ell Paso, namely,
San Francisco, Sacramento Los An
gelcs and San Jose. where the traffic
receipts of the road were greater than
from this little new beet sugar town.
THE ARID REGION