Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1906-05-10
SUGAR BETS
IN WESTERN KANSAS,
100000 Acres Under irrigation.
WHAT tho Government, the San
ia 70 aRd the People are
Doing to Improve
Conditions.

| something WncH IL ucbdu ito ouBA DSS.
experiments In the Arkansas Valley
remarked r. P. Davie, vice president and
general manger of the United States
sugar aud Land Company, as he stood In
contemplation OF a busy scene before him.
1t was the site OF the Garden City sugar
plant, where a small army Of men were
digging trenches for foundations and un-
| loading structural iron and other build
ing material, and he was talking to a
group Of visitors and local newspaper
men. Continuing he said:
Before we turn wheel, we will have
invested 5000 0 cash on this site, not
counting lands we have bought, irriga-
lion bitches we will dig, and farm i'm
proveinents we will make. Even with 1t
all done here we will have made be-
ginning only. We have come to the
arkansas Valley to share the field with
our neighbors. One plant will not satisfy
US. We can better reach some Of our
land from Deerield, where we will soon
establish a plant. More than this 1t Is
good sugar beet soil east of US. We are
testing the ground 80 far east as Great
Bend, supplementing the experiments OF
the Santa Fe, and we fully expect to have
our share of that territory.
"But our Company is not the whole
works, or half OF it. We are the first
company to operate in Kansas, but Just
over the line in Colorado, within 100
miles of here, are three plants. The four
perhaps will approximate a million bags
of refined sugar this year. That means
100 million pounds. We will not quite
touch that, but in a few short years the
Arkansas Valley will pass that figure,
and in the next generation the production
will have multiplied many fold. The
present population Of the United States
consumes about thirty million bags of
sugar annually, of which the country
produces only ten million. We ought to
produce every bag of it, and we will in
time"
"But 1t Is of the present development
of the sugar possibilities Of the Arkansas
Valley-of Kansas, If you please-that
we are talking" he resumed rehectively.
"There never has been anything like it
in the history Of sugar culture, and the
beginning of 1t all was the faith of The
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe in the
country which it traverses in its long
Journeys from the Lakes to the Pacific
and to the Gulf. For understand It to
be the policy Of the Santa Fe to help every
where. Other illustrations OF this, be-
lieve, are the developments of the cement
and the brick shale beds Of Southeastern
Kansas. But be that as it may, know
it was the practical application Of this
policy of the Santa Fe that has led to the
development of the beet sugar POSSIBLE
ties of Kansas and Colorado. The Santa
Fe has pointed the way and capital is
doing the rest.
added to this, the railroad company
by its experiments has pointed the way
for Uncle Sam to exercise a natnial func-
ton of Government. The Santa Fe has
an industrial department which has been
of incalculable value In the developmentof
the resources Of the Arkansas Valley. It
was by the efforts of this department that
take hand out here.
about seven years ago, Congress ap-
propriated 100000 ascertain the volume
Of the underhow Of the Arkansas Valley.
After making exhaustive tests, the ex-
pcrts in the service of the Government
we're so we'll satisfied with the volume Of
water that the Reclamation Bureau Of the
Government proposed to the farmers own
ing the Farmers ditch to install a
powerful plant to pump water during the
dry seasons. The offer was accepted,
Congress appropriating 1925, 600 to de-
fray the expense and the farmers con-
senting to the usual conditions imposed
by the Reclamation Service, to wit :
Charging the farmers $50 per acre for
the perpetual water, the same to be paid
in ten annual installments without inter
est, This plant Is now an established
fact, and 1t will insure water for about
10000 acres perpetually. This land has
been under irrigation from the river for
years, but occasionally in the dry seasons
there has not been full suficiency Of
water. Now, with a Government plant
pumping water from the inexhaustible
underhow, these lands will be well wat
cred in all seasons.
" Taking advantage Of the lessons
learned by the experiments Of the railroad
company, and afterward by the more
thorough experiments of the Govern
ment, the farmers, who own the Garden
City ditch, are planning to install plant
similar to the Governments, and our
Sugar company, which owns the Lakin
ditch, already Is installing one, Withall
these enterprises in operation, and with
the completion of all the bitches and res
ervoirs, now projected, or under way, a
hundred thousand acres Of very fine land
will have permanent water rights and
thereby be subjected to the uses Of man.
There never has been dry well put down
in the Arkansas Valley between Lakin
and Garden City. The average depth in
the first bottom Is only ten feet, in the
second from twelve to forty; but, when
the right stratum is reached, water is al
ways found in abundance.
'In 1905 the Arkansas Valley, tribu-
tary to Garden City, produced only 5000
tons of beets. To supply the factory
which we are building. here, the same ter
ritory must raise this year and every year
hereafter no less than 500, 1000 tons. This
means a multiplication in a single year
Of last years production Of one hundred
fold, but am confident, from the expert
nlents in soil and water by The Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe, and from the prac-
teal results obtained by local farmers In
4 small way, that with the extensive
preparations we are making we will get
all the beets we can use, and that soon
ihe increased production will be 50 large
tliat we will have to build the Deerheld
amt The sugar beet is going to make
the Arkansas Valley TEEN with popula-
ton"