The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-07-12
SUGAR IS GREAT
NATIONAL ASSET.
Prosperity of Nation De-
ponds Upon Use of
Resources

d b
One of the staple articles of food
in our nation is sugar. Its popu-
larity as food is ever increasing
In 1870 the people of the United
States used less than Is pounds OF
sugar per capita per anRum. In
1914 they used 80 pounds per capt.
ia. If the rate of consumption in
creases after the conclusion of peace
as it has during the past decade we
will reach 100 pounds per capita
about 1920.
The population of the continental
United States is now about no.
100000. With population OF
11O, 900 and a sugar consump-
ton of 100 pounds per capita, our
annual sugar needs will be just five
and half million tons. Put up in
100-pound bags and laid end to end
this quantity of sugar would extend
twice around the earth with enough
left to make continuous string
from New York to Denver. Laid
as close together as possible these
bags of sugar would pave road 25
feet wide from New York to San
Francisco.
To supply this enormous amount
of sugar we have within the United
States 100 beet sugar factories, sew
eral of which are closed, and small
area in Louisiana which produces
sugar cane. The total output from
both these sources of domestic sup
ply is about 100000 tons per year.
The Louisiana fiel is developed to
the limit and the beet factories are
face to face with sentiment which
bids fair to curtail rather than in
crease their output in the years to
come.
If the beet sugar companies con-
tinue in business and succeed in
maintaining their present output and
the Louisiana field is favored with
the best of luck we find that our ma
ton will be dependent upon foreign
soil and foreign labor for about A.
100000 tons of sugar per year. At
20 cents per pound this amounts to
the sum of nine hundred and seven
ty million dollars iof money pro-
duced in America each year which
would be put in the pockets of a
foreign people for a commodity which
ought to be produced from our own
soil by our own citizens.
The farmers of our irrigated west
ern states have redeemed from the
desert about twelve million acres OF
land practically every acre of which
will produce first class sugar beets
In productivity and certainty of yield
these lands are superior to any 9TH
err lands within the boundaries OF
the nation.
From the standpoint of national
necessity and also from the view
point of returns on labor and in
vestment sugar production is the
best and wisest use to which the
lands of the great irrigated west
can be put. A conservative estimate
of the productive powers of these
lands planted to sugar beets and
properly titled would be ten tons
per acre.
Accepting, for the purpose of esti-
mate, the statements of the beet
sugar manufacturers that the aver
age extraction of sugar from beets
is about 250 pounds per ton and
knowing that these manufacturers
have placed their figures as low as
they possibly could we find than an
acre of land producing 10 tons of
beets adds directly to the public
larder $500 pounds OF sugar, worth
at the present time about $500.
When we remember that the above
figures are exceedingly conservative
as to yield and extraction and bear
ing in mind the thought that from
the said ten tons of beets there will
result as by-product at least three
tons of tops, three to five tons of
pulp and probably 200 pounds of
all of which is first class
cattle food, it is easily seen that no
other acres in the nation can as
be made profitable as can
sugar beet lands.
With one-fifth of our irrigated do
main under cultivation to sugar beets
we would produce at least three mil
lion tons of sugar per year and from
fifteen to twenty-five million tons of
cattle feed. This would directly add
to the wealth of the nation four to
five hundred million dollars annu-
ally.
Aside from this golden stream
which would be poured directly into
the national Golfers the indirect
benefits resulting to the beet-pro-
ducing districts would be worth
many millions more. An agricultur-
al program calling for one-fifth of
the available western acreage planted
to sugar beets would provide an ideal
system of crop rotation which would
result in more efficient farming.
A supply Of fodder sue has would |
result from beet tops, pulp and mo-
lasses would encourage stock rails
ing and dairying to unimagined pro-
portions. The cattle thus kept would