Year: 1877

MAKING Our OwN SUGAR.-The people of
this State have been aroused to some degree
of interest, if nothing more, by the discus
sions that have recently been introduced
on the question of sugar beet culture. If
we could produce our own sugar as we pro-
duce our own breadstuffs the saving would
be immense, as everybody knows. The
sugar bill of family comes next to the
-four bill, it is said, and it takes, as a rule,
q barrel of -four the year for each individual
of household. Our population is some
thing over l25,000 people, and we pay
about $3.50 per barrel for -four. The value
of the -four consumed in the State therefore
amounts to over one million of dollars.
If our sugar bill is as large it shows what a
drain our State has to stand for this great
staple of life. 1t costs the whole country
three hundred millions Of dollars year for
the article. That is, that much is paid out
of the country for imported sugar, in addi-
ton to the large product manufactured in
the Southern States. 1t is plain to see,
therefore, that Delaware's sugar bill is no
trifing one.


But our ability to consume needs no
showing. The question to be settled is,
whether or not it is not cheaper to buy it
than to undertake to make it ourselves
Only a practical test can settle this, and
that practical test is expensive. The far
mers can't afford to use up their means on
experiments, even when the greatest re-
suits are promised. Still, in view of the
vast Importance of the matter, the expert
ment ought to be made, and the State
ought to aid it, we think. No internal i'm
provement, no railroad scheme, manufac-
turing enterprise, or what not, has ever
gone home to the entire peopleso thoroughly
as this home made sugar question is doing.
1t enters so largely into our domestic
economy that it appeals to every man,
woman and child in the State as hardly
anything else could dc.


We do not say, or even intimate, that
trial would result in success. What we in
sist upon is that the enterprise is worth the
trial, let the result be what it may. But
should even moderate success follow, the
saving to the State would amount to more
than all the revenues from its best paying
dividends combined. Therefore let the
Senate pass the House bill and appropriate
$500 as an inducement to the people to
make the experiment.


Farmers are not disposed to rush into
the experiment very energetically, for a
time at least, particularly in the two lower
counties. They havn't forgotten the sor-
ghum enterprise. They rushed into that
with an intensity that caused them to
overshoot the mark, and the business col.
lapsed as suddenly as it sprang to life.
Their zeal in an untried scheme was too
intense, and they became disgusted before
they came to a fair trial In three years
the State increased the manufacture oil
sorghum rnolasses from about 1000 gallons
to over $4,000 gallons, and by the time
thousands of dollars worth of machinery
had been brought into the State to manu-
facture the syrup the farmers had become
disgusted with growing the cane, and thus
the experiment came to grief before i
could properly be tested, either in propaga
ton or particularly thc
latter. A few, who survived the shock
however, still insist that sorghum molasse
can be made equal to any in the marke
and at competing prices.


The Senate has refused to concur in tn
House bill, and therefore the matter viii
have to hang upon individual effort.