The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1907-09-27
ONE OF THE LARGEST.
Owosso Has One of the Biggest Sugar
Factories.


Factories.
When the new pulp drying equip
ment of the Owosso Sugar company
is completed and in operation Owos-
so may boast of one of the best
equipped and one of the three or
four largest beet sugar plants in the
world. In the beet sugar industry of
the country there is but one or
two factories as large.
The Owosso Sugar company fac
tory, which is one of Owosso's prin-
cipal manufacturing plants, is owned
and operated by men of ample capt.
tai, and Carman N. Smith, of Bay
City, is manager. The mill was
built in 1908, after several prior at
tempts to establish such an in
stitution had proved futile. To
keep the factory in operation
during the busy season or cam.
paign" ten thousand acres of
the productive beet sugar fields
about Owosso are under culti-
vation. The company puts into cir
culation upward of $4,000 day dur
ing the campaign" and alone pays
one-eleventh of the city taxes.
1t requires an immense amount of
acreage to provide the mill with beets
sufficient to keep it working to the
full capacity. The raising of sugar
beets, or more particularly, the
wedding of the beet gardens, is
something of an art and a mighty
tedious one. Because no other class
seemed capable of the work the COM
pany imported trainload of Bohem-
ians from Wisconsin and sent them
through the surrounding country.
Barely farm within a radius of ten
miles is without a tent or two shell
tering some of these Bohemian beet
weeders.
A general overseer of the beet
fields is employed by the company
and furnished with fast automobile
runabout He travels over the coun-
try devoted to beet raising for the
mill and sees to it that the crops are
properly cared for. Upon him rests
great deal of the responsibility of
keeping the mill supplied with beets
once the campaign" is inaugural
ed.
The "Prairie Farm of 10000
acres, owned and operated by the
company, is a great success. Exten-
sive drainage operations have been
carried out and the land diked in.
Here indeed are the inhabitants cos
mopolitan. Practically every nation
of the globe is represented on this
farm, which is conducted along the
lines of small and Independent
state.
The company dictates that there
shall be no intoxication. 1t does not
permit the sale of intoxcants on the
farm. "A general store is maintained,
not by the company, but by an in
dividual who. however, is amply pro-
tected through the fact that his bills
are recognized as claims against the
pay of the company's men. On this
great farm all sorts of crops are
raised and the company is expert
peppermint cultivation as a CONNER
cial proposition. A small proportion
of the 10000 acres is devoted to
sugar beets, but the company ad-
mits that the prairie farm is a sort Of
emergency proposition to be depend
ed upon in the event of the failure
at any time of the surrounding far
mers to continue in the beet culti-
vation on scale sufficient to keep
the mill supplied.
Beet pulp is recognized as one of
the best rations for stock feeding,
but it is necessary to make it COM
mercial success for shipping long dis
tances by rail- that it be dried or in
some other manner reduced in vol
ume and weight. In the drying plant
the pulp will be dried out by hot air
drawn from the boiler furnaces and
circulated through two cylinders
sixty-one feet long and ten feet in
diameter. 1t will be reduced in
bulk and weight about sixteen
times and will then be prepared for
shipment. There is already an un-
derstocked market for this dried
pulp, and the new plant will mean
also a big additional earning capaci-
ty for the plant. The dried pulp is
soaked in water for feeding and as
sumes practically the same proper
tions as when it came from the sug-
L IL. 4.