The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1915-03-25

CURED to pay for the imported sugar
bought from foreign growers and deal
ers. To grow the wheat that went to
settle this sugar bill it was necessary to
till 7,S06,500 acres at the average yield
of the past ten years. This is nearly
one-eigth of the normal wheat acreage
OF the entire country and represents an
aroa almost equal to the combined total
of the improved land in the three large
Western States of Montana, Wyoming,
and Utah. Practically all the wheat
grown in the four great agricultural
states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois
and Iowa was required to foot the ma
tion s bill for imported, foreign grown
sugar.
If it were impossible to grow sugar
in the United States it would be ex-
cusable to use this large proportion of
our wheat crop to pay for sugar imports
As statistics published by the depart
ment of agriculture show, however,
there are no less than 278,OOO,0OO acres
in the country adapted to sugar grow
ing, and all the sugar imported into the
United States last year could have been
grown on approximately 100000 acres
Of our own land. Bulletin 26O Of the
department of agriculture gives list
Of nineteen states adapted to sugar beet
growing and adds:
If one farmer in four in these states
were to plant 3-acre patch and give it
the care that could readily be bestowed
upon so small a plat, it would be unnec-
essary for us to buy foreign sugar. Two
thirds of ! per cent. of the improved
land in this area is all that would be
required to accomplish this result. More
than that acreage lies idle, absolutely
unused, every year. Any one of the
states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Mis-.
souri,, Minnesota, Nebraska, or Ohio
could produce all this sugar and then
have the beets occur only once in TO-
year rotation; several of the others
could do it alone on Swear rotation.
AS a result of the purchase of sugar
supplies from foreign countries and the
export of wheat to pay for it the soil
the United States is being drained of
valuable elements Of fertility. In con-
sequence the land becomes steadily less
productive unless the elements of which
it is robbed are replaced at heavy cost.
AS a matter of actual practice among
the majority of American wheat grow
ers no consistent effort is made to pre-
vent this progressive soil exhaustion.
exhaustion.
The relative effect of wheat and SUI
gar upon the land is shown by the fact
that an acre of wheat takes forty
pounds of nitrogen from the soil, while
an acre of beets takes thirty pounds. In
the case of beets, however none of the
nitrogen is contained in the sugar it.
self 1t is all in the pulp and tops,
which, as by products of sugar extrac-
ton, are fed to stock andso returned
to the soil. In exporting wheat, on the
other hand, the precious nitrogen goes
with it and is lost to the nation.
The net result of the uneconomic
policy Of the United States in fail
ing to grow it's entire sugar supply
and in paying for the imported portion
in exported wheat involved loss to
the country in the single year 1914 of
approximately 100000 tons of nitrogen.
Sugar itself is made up of carbon, n.y.
drogen and oxygen. 1t may best be de-
scribed as crystallized sunshine stored
in the beet or cane plants by nature and
extracted by man. In importing sugar,
therefore, we are buying foreign sun
shine. In sending abroad American
grown wheat to balance the account we
are selling the very ifehOod Of the soil.
The ruinOus ultimate result of this pol
icy upon the agricultural resources Of
the country is obvious.