The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-08-30
BIG SALEOF SUGAR
Garden City Company Disposes
Of $4,000 Bags.
Kansas Industry That Is Just
Being Developed.
ACRES OF SUGAR BETS
Six Thousand Three Hundred in
Kansas District.
Glimpse of the Monster New
Factory There.
Celebration Planned for Late in
October.

1.-THE United States Sugar and Land
company of Garden City this week
sold 5000 bags of sugar said Mr. F.
L. Vandegrift this morning. THE SUI
gar is not there and the beets from
which it will be produced are not done
growing, but skeptics, who doubt the
possibility of the production of sugar
in commercial quantities from Kansas
soil, have only to go to Garden City
and view the vast acreage of growing
beets and the costly preparations for
converting the saccharine into sugar
to be convinced"
Mr.. Vandegrift, while he was doing
Kansas politics for the Kansas City
Star, also interested himself and the
Star in the native resources of Kansas.
Indeed. he personally found more in
terest in those things than in politics,
and the files of the Star are full of his
work of that character. He was the
pioneer newspaper writer in the vitri-
ned brick industry, in salt in cement,
in zinc, in gypsum, and finally, in beet
sugar. All of these natural resources
of the state have been uncovered since
Mr.. Nandegrfft began newspaper work
and, with hardly an exception all
he was the Stars correspondent in
Kansas. He began to write of the
Kansas sugar beet in the year it first
took root in the state, five or six years
ago, and While he was ridiculed in
some quarters he lost no faith, and the
sale of 600 bags of sugar of Garden
City manufacture, this week, is a full
hllment of that faith Mr.. Nande-
grift's faith was inspired by the
Judgment of r d. Coburn in whom
we all take stock. Really, all of the
Kansas papers stood pat on Mr.. Co
burns judgment, and it was the en-
enlargement given to the experiment
by the press that finally led to success.
THE sugar plant, now about COM
pleted at Garden City, and $500 acres
of growing beetS, are enough to con-
vince any one that the $4,000 bags of
sugar and then some will be forthcom-
ing when the wheels begin to turn"
continued Mr. VANDERBILT 1T has
been nearly ten years since the Atch-
ison, Topeka & Santa Fe began to test
the quality of the soil and the quantity
of the underflow of the Arkansas val
ley. with q view of establishing sugar
beet farming and ultimately of a beet
sugar factory in that part of Kansas.
These explorations and experiments
took the time of scientific men and
cost the railway company a great deal
of money but the result has justified
it all. For one plant will bring others,
and, besides the added revenues for
the company the industry Will bring
many thousand people to that section.
Indeed, the tide already has set in
and land which was worth five and ten
dollars an acre a short time ago, now
is worth $50 and SIS and in a few
years the Rocky Ford value of $3.50
will come. It IS not an exaggeration
to saw that the sugar beet has made
the Rocky Ford land the most valu-
able farming land in the United States,
and the Garden City district soon will
be in the same class.
I'VE read in the Kansas City papers