The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1913-11-28
REDUCTION OF
50 CENTS A TON
ON SUGAR BEETS
ATTRIBUTED TO NEW TARIFF
Michigan Growers Will Be Offered
Contracts At Smaller Price Than
They Received This Year,
It Is Said.

That the farmers of Michigan who
grow sugar beets will be offered con.
tracts for the 1914 season at consid-
erably lower price than the factories
have heretofore paid is an assured fact.
None of the Michigan sugar companies
has made any contracts for beets for
next year. although in former years
contracts were made with farmers while
they were making deliveries of beets in
the fall. Manager George Walt Of the
Lansing branch of the Owosso Sugar
company says that it is practically GER
tain that a reduction of 80 cents per ton
is what the farmers will be asked to
accept.
BLAME NEW TARIFF.
Manager Walt and other manufac-
turers throughout the state declare that
the cut is necessary because of the new
democratic tariff measure which re-
duced the rate on sugar and eventually
places it on the free list. In California
the farmers will be paid rs cents less
per ton in 1914, while in Colorado there
will be reduction of so cents per ton,
the same as is contemplated in Michi-
gan.
If the new schedule goes into effect,
and sugar manufacturers say that a
reduction is certain, the farmers of
central Michigan who deliver beets to
the Lansing factory, will lose in the
neighborhood of $4,000. This year
Manager Walt estimates that the Lam
sing factory will receive 10000 tons of
beets, which is about an average yield
for this vicinity. Figuring that the
acreage and the yield will be about the
same next year the producer will lose
$35, ,00O Mr.. Walt says that the fac.
tories are standing half the loss and
that the farmers will be asked to stand
the other half.
MICHIGAN YIELD S39, 4S0 TONS.
The total yield of sugar beets in
Michigan in 1912 was 839, ,480 tons,
while it is estimated that the yield this
year, which is about the average, will
be 757, ,511 tons. If the yield next year
comes up to the 1918 estimate and the
acreage does not decrease because of the
low price to be paid for beets, the
farmers of Michigan win be forced to
stand a reduction of 1878, 755. so.
Manager Walt says that the Lansing
factory will operate next year, but
according to dispatches some of the
factories throughout the state will not
attempt to run, The present season
promises to be one of the best in the
history of the Lansing factory.
BEGINNING OF END"-P. H. KELLEY
This is the beginning of the end Of
the great sugar beet industry" de-
clares Congressman P. n. Kelley. 1T
is only question of a short time be-
fore every sugar beet plant will be
forced to discontinue business, and the
country placed at the mercy of the
refners.
while the policy followed by the
democrats relative to sugar will at
once curtail the output of beet sugar
factories and reduce the price of
beets to the farmers and at the end of
three years destroy the business en-
tirely in this country, 1t will not
result in any permanent benefit to the
consumers.
THE American people consume about
3,500,0 600 tons of sugar year. About
| 800, 900 tons of this is made in our beet
sugar factories. There remains 2,700,
900 tons which come to us from Cuba,
the Philippines. Hawaii and Porto Rico,
Sugar is admitted free from the last
three bat on Cuban sugar there has
been duty of $1.34 per hundred
pounds. Thirty four cents of the duty
has been removed and at the end of
three years all the duty will be taken
off.
CUBAN SUGAR PRODUCED CHEAPLY.
when the duty Is taken off Cuban
sugar it can be laid down at any At.
lantic seaport city for $500 hundred.
Freight costs 10 cents and refining
costs 40 cents, The6nished product is
thus ready for sale at less than the
farmer is today receiving for the sugar
in the beet.
There are just three great reiineries
and this policy gives them monopoly
on the supply of sugar. They wl,'
probably cut prices until the beet sugar
plants are disposed Of and then raise
the prices again and so reap the benefit
OF free sugar.
1.-The democratic policy places the