Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1906-05-11
SUGAR BETS
IN. WESTERN KANSAS.
100000 Acres nderIrrigation.
What the Government, the San
IA fe and the People are
Doing to Improve
Conditions.

GARDEN CRY, KAs., May 2.-"The
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe started
something when it began its sugar beet
experiments in the Arkansas Valley"
remarked R. p Davie, vice president and
general manger of the United States
Sugar and Land Company, as he stood in
contemplation Of busy scene before him.
1t was the site Of the Garden City sugar
plant, where small army Of men were
digging trenches for foundations and I'M
loading structural iron and other build
ing material, and he was talking to
group Of visitors and local newspaper
men. Continuing he said:
Before we turn a wheel, we will have
invested 100000 cash on this site, not
counting lands we have bought, irriga-
ton bitches we will dig, and farm i'm
provements we will make. Even with it
all done here we will have made a 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 Deerfeld, where we will soon
establish a plant More than this it is
good sugar beet soil east of us. We are
testing the ground so 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 lust
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 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 it 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 it 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 il 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
tor Uncle Sam to exercise a natural 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
the United States Government was led to
take hand out here.
About seven years ago, Congress ap-
propriated $50, ascertain the volume
OF the underfow Of the Arkansas Valley.
After making exhaustive tests, the ex-
perts in the service of the Government
were so well 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 accented,
Congress appropriating sos, 1000 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 it 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 Government plant
pumping water from the inexhaustible
underhow, these lands will be we'll wat
cred in all seasons.
Taking advantage of the lessons
learned byth experiments of the railroad
company, and afteward 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 !