The Lamar register., 1915-11-03
HOME GROWN SUGAR SAVING
MILLIONS TO CONSUMERS
Refiners' Prices on Imported Product
Forced to Low Level of the Year
in Every Part of Country by
Competition of the New
Domestic Crop

the sugar industry, American grown
beet sugar is now on sale in every
state of the Union with the possible
exception of Louisiana.
During the past few weeks the price
of sugar in all parts of the United
States has declined to the lowest
point it has reached during the en-
tire year.
There is very direct and important
connection between these two facts.
Beet sugar is produced by sixty-six
separate factories scattered across the
country from Ohio and Michigan to
the Pacific coast. The eastern factor
les did not begin the seasons opera
ton Of extracting sugar from beets
until October LIST. The output of these
factories is just coming upon the mar
ket In California, however, the beet
sugar factories began operating in
August. A few of them opened as
early as July.
California Sugar Comes East
During the latter part of August,
the product of these California sugar
factories began to be offered in At
lantic coast cities. Although freight
charges for the transcOntinental trip
are heavy, the California sugar pro-
ducers proceeded to undersell the i'm
ported sugar handled by the big sea-
board sugar refiners by twenty to
a.. e -. iKsf,r
cents hundred pounds-in such cities
as Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore,
where beet sugar, except for occas-
ional insignificant shipments, has been
almost unknown heretofore. In Chi
cago and other interior cities the gap
between the price of imported sugar
and that asked for the homegrown
product was even greater than on the
Atlantic coast, amounting to thirty
five and forty cents hundred pounds.
Beet Competition Brings Down Prices
The effect of this widespread and
aggressive competition was immed-
late Throughout the summer, from
the beginning of May to the end of
American-grown sugar on the mar
ket, the big refiners of imported sug-
ar had held the price steadily at six
cents a pound. With the customary
two per cent discount which is allow
ed for cash purchases, this made the
lowest cash price Of graduated sugar
at the refineries 5.8S cents a pound.
With the appearance of California
sugar in the eastern market the re-
fners' price at the end Of August
had declined to 5.39 cents a pound,
approximately half cent lower than
it had been throughout the summer.
During the following month, as more
and more homegrown sugar came
upon the market, the price of the i'm
ported sugar of the refiners fell still
further. At the end of September the
net cash quotation was 4.8O2 cents a
pound, more than a cent pound less
than it had been during the summer
months, when the refiners and their
foreign grown sugar were in undis
puted control of the market
As sugar grown from American
soil invaded one big eastern city after
another the same process went on in
each. Wholesale and retail prices
declined from half cent to a cent a
pound. Grocers who had been selling
fifteen to sixteen pounds of sugar for
a dollar began to put out advertise
ments offering eighteen to twenty
pounds for a dollar. The effect was
so sudden and so marked that news
papers which ordinarily pay little at
tention to the price of sugar printed
articles calling attention to the ser
vice that was being rendered to con-
sumers by domestic sugar.
As the American people buy an av-
erage of nearly 25,OOO,OOO pounds If
sugar a day, the direct cash saving
of consumers through the reduction
in prices that has taken place since
the new crop of domestic sugar ca e
upon the market amounts to approx
imately a quarter of million dollars
a day. During the past six weeks the
sum total of this direct saving realiz-
ed by the purchase Of sugar