Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1919-11-08
FLORIDA SUGAR
POSSIBILITY IS
UNLINITEO NOW
COMMISSIONER OF AGRICUL-
TURE M'RAE SAYS THERE is
NO REASON WHY THIS STATE
SHOULD NOT SUPPLANT LOU
ISIANA AS A SUGAR RAISING
STATE

SHOULD MI oCT LAM bOO-
ISIANA AS A SUGAR RAISING
STATE
TALLAHASSEE, Nov. 8.--Com-
missioner Of Agriculture W. A. Nc
Rae has for many years tried to i'm
press on Flordians that there was a
fortune in the cultivation Of sugar
cane for making sugar and syrup.
Many have followed his advise on a
mall scale, but it has never been I'M
dertaken on the same large scale that
producers in Cuba and Louisiana fol-
low.
/ Commissioner McRae issued a state
ment recently in which he said:
Sugar is made in thirty-eight diff
ferent countries and the raw material
is produced on 100000 acres,
equal to an area of about one-third
that of Florida. The sugar produc-
tioning is about equally divided be-
tween beets and sugar cane.
The yield of beet sugar per acre
has varied in he different countries
from 1900 to $500 pounds, while
the cane sugar production per acre
varies from 5000 to 5000 pounds.
Beets are raised as a rule by a
primitive and most tiresome form of
hand labor by men, women and
children bending or crawling along
the rows. Cane is cultivated by mod
ern machine labor.
Beets are grown in eighteen Am
erican States, and cane in twelve, but
more than two-thirds of the produc-
ton of sugar cane is in one State
Louisiana.
Sugar cane is grown in every coun-
ty in Florida, but no sugar is made.
A great deal of syrup is made and yet
much of the syrup to be found in the
stores if the State is composed of
either corn glucose or else calculated
starch.
Would it be extravagant to say that
Florida could make all the sugar need
ed in the world? Distribution would
be he main objection, but what about
making the four or more million tons
now used in the United States?
All of the sugar needed by the Am
erican people could be made from
cane grown in the Everglades region
alone and leave plenty of land to raise
potatoes tomatoes and a world OF
other things good to eat, something
in every month of the year.
Why send to Cuba, Hawaii anc
other countries? In Cuba, whence oul
largest supply comes, the sugar Is
put on cars, hauled to seaport
transported to a ship, hauled to New
York, transferred to cars again, anC
sent here and there over the country
some of it coming to Florida.
Florida made sugar could be put
on cars and without breaking bull
be delivered to any part of the Union
A money investment equal to thu
cost of battleship or a New York Of
Chicago skyscraper could put thi
Florida sugar proposition on fai,
way to realization.
Is it not a project worthy of con
sideration from men who spend vas
sums of American capital to promot
enterprises in other countries?
The demand for sugar will be in
creased with each succeeding year
. It has a place in the dietary of tn
. human race that nothing else can sup
. ply.
+ Before this century is half gon
: the United States will contain 200
! 100000 people and they will be usin
! nearly as much as the entire world
!. using this year, A. D. 1919. Will W
!. in 1850 be still getting most of thi
prime fod necessity from foreig
+ countries?
+ We certainly will if we don't NOV
+ faster than we have in the last fit
!. years.
In view of the high cost of barre
: and the increasing scarcity of goo
:. barrel slaves, took up the questio
: of storing sugar can syrup, with tt
= United States Bureau of Chemistr,
+ to find out whether it was safe
+ store it in tanks, as several of OF
= State institutions expect to make col
: siderable quantities this year, II
+ room and last evening as the CUES
+ Of their sister, Mrs, Julien de MAJ;