021 529 517 5 • P16 60th Congress, ) SENATE. J Document 1st Session. j ( No. 530. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. Dick presented the following ADDRESSES BY MR. TRUMAN G. PALMER, SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN BEET SUGAR ASSOCIATION, UPON THE PROGRESS OF THE INDUSTRY, ITS ECONOMIC VALUE TO THE NATION, ITS SPECIAL IMPORTANCE TO ARID AMERICA, AND THE LEGISLA- TION WHICH THREATENS ITS DESTRUCTION. May 29, 1908.— Ordered to be printed. The thirteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, one of the most important organizations of the kind in the United States, was held at St. Paul, August 19-22. The congress is non-political and aims to represent and forward all the material interests of that vast territory which lays west of the Mississippi River. The beet-sugar interests were ably presented by Mr. Truman G. Palmer, of Chicago, the well-known beet-sugar authority, writer, and statistician, who was a delegate of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and made the trip from Washington to St. Paul for that purpose. Below we give Mr. Palmer's address in full, and we must say that it touches more important phases of the subject and gives a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the industry and its importance to American agriculture than any single paper we have yet seen. THE AMERICAN- S3ET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. [Address before the thirteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- gress, held at St. Paul, Minn., August 19-22, 1902.] The development of the manufacture of sugar from beet roots is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century, and represents an in- vestment in factories alone, mostly in Europe, of between six and seven hundred million dollars. 61,01. 2 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. To consider the beet-sugar industry intelligently, a word should be said concerning- the history of cane sugar, the production of which supplied the world's markets for centuries before it was known that sugar could be produced, commercially, from beet roots. CANE SUGAR. The original habitat of sugar cane is unknown, but is supposed to be in the country extending from Cochin China to Bengal. The art of boiling sugar is mentioned as early as the seventh cen- tury, the art of refining was discovered in the fourteenth century, Venice became the great European center of the sugar trade in the fifteenth century, and during that century a Venetian received a re- ward of 100,000 crowns ($111,940) for the invention of the process of making loaf sugar. One of the earliest references to sugar in Great Britain is that of 50 tons being shipped to London in 1319, to be exchanged by a mer- chant for wool. At that time sugar sold for 43 cents per pound, and continued to be used only as a luxury and for medicinal purposes until the eighteenth century. HISTORY or BEET SUGAR IN EUROPE. After the fall of the Koman Empire, the barbarians took to Bohemia a so-called beet root, containing a few saccharine elements, but not enough to attract attention at that period. The beet root is not mentioned again until 1705. when Oliver De Serre discovered that alcohol could be obtained from the fermenta- tion, which convinced him that sugar existed therein. In 1747 the Prussian chemist, Mai^graf, director of the physical classes in the Academj^ of Science at Berlin, obtained sugar from the common beet root, possessing all the properties known to exist in cane sugar. In 1801 Franz Carl Achard, the pupil and successor of Marggraf, erected at Cunern, Silesia, the first beet-sugar factory in the world. During the Napoleonic wars, when the British blockade deprived France of sugar, and the price had risen to $1 per pound. Napoleon appropriated 1,000,000 francs ($200,000) with which to experiment with beet roots. In 1810 the first French factory was erected at Lille, and produced sugar at a cost of 30 cents per pound, the beets at that time averaging but 6 per cent of sugar. Encouraged by Napoleon and by Frederick the Great, the industry gradually assumed commercial proportions, and from 1822 to 1825 over 100 factories were erected, while by 1830 nearly all the European countries were taking an active interest in the industry. By systematic, fostering legislation Europe has secured the invest- ment of $630,000,000 in an industry which annually distributes over $200,000,000 to its farmers and $100,000,000 to other home interests. Based on the average price which the United States has paid for- eign countries for refined sugar during the past eleven years (0.0315 cent per pound), the beet sugar producing countries of Europe keep at home $213,587,000 which they would otherwise send to the Tropics for the 3,076,000 metric tons of sugar which these countries now annually consume. AUG 1 1908 "Omic facts. The sugar bills of the American people amount to over a million dollars a day for every working day in the year. Last year Ave paid to foreigners for sugar more money than AA^e received for all our ex- ports of Avheat and wheat flour, corn and corn meal, and all our ex- ports of breadstuffs put together, except barley. The sugar Ave im- ported last year could have been produced from one and one-half million acres of American soil, yet it took the entire cereal product from eight and one-half million acres of American farms to pay for THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 45. it. Eighty-five per cent of all the nione}^ we sent abroad for the pur- chase of foodstuffs Avhich we are capable of producing at home is expended for sugar. THE AMERICAN SUGAR INDUSTRY— ITS PRESENT DEVELOPMENT AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. [Address before the seventeenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- gress, held at Kansas City, Mo., November L'0-:i5, 1906.] There are few, indeed, who realize the importance which home sugar production has upon the domestic economy of the nations of the world, and upon the development and prosperity of this great trans- Mississippi territory. The use of the cereal crops as articles of diet antedates the Chris- tian era by thousands of years, but one of the earliest mentions of even raw sugar was in the thirteenth century, at which time it sold at 43 cents per pound. The art of refining was not discovered until the fourteenth century, and it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that Queen Elizabeth became its patron saint by first introducing its use as an article of diet. One hundred and fifty years later, Marggraf discovered that sugar could be pro- duced from beets, and in 1801 the first beet-sugar factory was erected. In 1840 the world used about one million tons of sugar, less than 5 per cent of wdiich was derived from beets. In 1890 the world's sugar consumption had increased to six million tons, only to be doubled last year, wiien the crop exceeded twelve million tons, over seven millions of which were produced from sugar beets. Last year the people of the world expended a billion and a quarter dollars for the purchase of this newdy found article of diet, or nearly twelve times the total value of all our exports of breadstuffs to all the nations of the world. The growth of no other newly found arti- cle of diet begins to compare with that of sugar, and none can pre- dict what figures its future consumption will reach, but if the per capita consumption of the world were as great as that of the United States it would require over fifty million tons to supply it, and the annual sugar bill of the world would be over six billion dollars. IMPORTANCE OF HOME PRODUCTION. Owing to the important bearing of home sugar production on the domestic economy of a nation, the statesmen and political economists of Europe have so legislated that over $600,000,000 have been invested in 1,500 beet-sugar factories, and in all Continental Europe there are but three nations, and these of the smallest, which do not produce all or more sugar than they consume, while between them they export several million tons. The 1905 sugar bill of the American people amounted to over $328,000,000, or more than $1,000,000 for each working day of the year. In the United States proper and in our insular possessions we produced a large proportion of this sugar, but in addition to the home production we expended over $97,000,000 in foreign countries for the purchase of this single product. It took the product from .46 THE BEET STJGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. over 8,500,000 acres of American wheat, corn, and oats to settle our foreign sugar bills for 1905. Our 1905 importations of sugar were equal to the value of 121.000.000 bushels of wheat at 80 cents per bushel, and this 121,000,000 bushels of Avheat rob our soil of over $20,000,000 worth of fertilizing elements, while the sugar we import does not come from the soil, but is merely the rain, the wind, and the sunshine which sweeps over foreign fields, and in no possible manner can it replenish our soil one iota. EXPAND AN EXISTINCx INDUSTRY. To produce at home all the sugar we consume does not mean that we must establish a new industry, but merely expand an existing in- dustry, the huge importance of which is not generally comprehended. In the beet-sugar industry and the cane-sugar industry of Louisiana, Texas, Porto Rico, and Hawaii there is invested over $523,000,000. Compare this investment with the money invested in other American industries. The 1900 census report groups all manufacturing industries under 347 classifications or heads. There are but 72 in which the capital invested exceeds 5 per cent of the amount invested in the American sugar industry, but 41 in which it exceeds 10 per cent, but 15 in which it exceeds 25 per cent, but seven in which it exceeds 50 per cent, and but four in which it exceeds the amount invested in the American sugar industry. The $G,500,000 invested in our 57 tin-plate mills is but a fraction over 1 per cent of what we have invested in sugar jDlants. Our investment in the sugar industry is eighteen times what it is in all our cordage and twine plants, sixteen times what it is in all our distilleries, eight times what it is in glass factories, nearly seven times what it is in shipbuilding plants, six times what it is in silk mills, four and one-half times what it is in our 8,000 furniture factories, three times what it is in our agricultural implement fac- tories, and nearly three times what it is in all of our 1,100 great slaughtering and meat-packing plants. ANNUAL OUTPUT. Then compare the value of the annual output : Of the entire census list of 317 groups there are but 76 the value of the output of which exceeded 10 per cent of the wholesale value of the product of the American sugar factories of 1905, only 40 groups where it exceeded 25 per cent, but 19 where it exceeded 50 per cent, and but 8 where it was in excess of the value of the sugar output. Last year the value of the product of our sugar mills was three times as great as that of all our distilleries in 1900, twice as much as that of all our bakeries, $91,000,000 more than that of all our breweries, more than half as much as that of all our flour and grist mills, and 40 per cent of as much as the value of all our slaughtering and meat-packing plants. Next, compare the value of our sugar imports with the value of our exports of manufactured products. The value of our exports of cot- ton manufactures and silk manufactures and wool manufactures com- bined would liquidate our foreign sugar bill for only six months; of pig iron, bar iron, billets, blooms, wire, wire rods, iron and steel rails. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 47 iron and steel sheets, tin plate and structural iron combined, for only four months; of sole leather, boots and shoes, harness and saddles, and all other classes of leather goods for less than five months; of fresh beef, for three months; of agricultural implements, for two months. As compared to the value of our exports of cereals, our imports of sugar cost us more than twice as much as we received for our exports of wheat and wheat flour, and within $10,000,000 of as much as we received for our combined exjDorts of all cereals and flours therefrom. Comj^aring the value of our cereal crops with the amount we an- nually expend for sugar at home and abroad we find that our annual sugar bill amounts to over 60 per cent of the total farm value of all the wheat we produce; it exceeds by $50,000,000 the value of all the oats we produce, and it is six times as great as the value of all the barley we produce. GOLD AND SUGAR VALUES. Comparing our annual sugar bill with the production of gold and silver, it will be seen that our 1905 sugar bill amounted to four times the value of all the gold we mined in the United States and Alaska in 1904, and exceeded by $62,000,000 the value of all the gold which was mined in all other portions of the world. All the gold which has been produced in the entire world since the discovery of America would settle the sugar bills of the American people for only thirty- four years. "Wlien it comes to our exports, we find that the amount of money we annually expend for sugar amounts to one-fifth of the total value of all our exports of every character to every country on the face of the globe. Transfer our home sugar industry to a foreign country and all the money we now receive for our combined exports of iron and steel, breadstuffs, cotton goods, and leather goods will not be sufficient to settle our foreign obligations for the one item of sugar. W^HAT OUR SUGAR WOULD BUY. Wliat the American people pay out for sugar every two years would purchase every farm and farm building in the whole of New England and leave a surplus of $128,000,000 with which to stock them. Our sugar bills for three years amount to more than the value of all the farms and farm buildings in Ohio, and $100,000,000 more than the value of all the farms and farm buildings in either New York or Pennsylvania. I am glad to note the awakening of our honorable and astute Sec- retary of State to the deplorable trade conditions existing between this countrj^ and Central and South America, for since we removed the duty on coffee and rubber we have lost over $350,000,000 of reve- nue on our importations from Brazil alone, and our adverse trade bal- ance with that country has amounted to over $1,350,000,000. The total value of our 1905 exports to the West Indies, Central and South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania combined, including Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, amounted to several mil- lion dollars less than what the American people expended the same vear for the one item of suffar. 48 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. MUST RETURN TO THE FARM. On October 7 of this j'^ear Mr. James J. Hill, in a notable address, told the Commercial Association of Chicago : We can not coutinue to supply the world and recruit our own resources by the methods of trade that now obtain, because the minerals stored in the ground do not recreate themselves. Once utilized they are gone forever. We shall, with these coming millions to provide for, he thrown back upim the soil, the only resource of mankind that is capable of infinite renewal and that offers life for generation after generation. This is the all-important lesson which it becomes you, as leaders of thought and action, as business men dealing with a business situation certain to arise in the near future, to impress upon the in- telligence and the imagination of those who follow your example and look to you for guidance. The period of ransacking the national storehouse to see what can be sent over seas and sold nuist be changed to an era in which we shall consider the preservation and the improvement of what is fundamentally our chief main- tenance. For upon the cultivation of the soil all varied commercial activity, of whatever intrinsic form or interest is mainly built, and upon it depend the future of mankind and the nature and stability of its instituti(ms. In some things we are going backward. The soil of the country is behig im- poverished by cnreless treatment. To a realization of our position to a return to agriculture, to a jealous care of our land resources, both as to quantity and quality, and to a mode of culti- vation that shall at once multiply per acre and restore instead of destroy pro- ductive qualities, we must come without delay if we are to escape disaster. I know of no issue in business or in politics that compares in importance with this that looms already upon us and threatens our future. It is easily demonstrable that a mere reform of methods of cultivation would double the agricultural products each year, adding for the whole country from five to six billion dollars to the national wealth, while the resort to small farms and the adoption of intensive cultivation would give an equal additional in- crement. THE HUMBLE SUGAR BEET. If Mr. Hill had mentioned the humble sugar beet as the most im- portant factor in creating the conditions which he outlined, as being necessary to our future prosperity, his remarks would have pointed no more specifically to this crop. Over $150,000,000 have been in- vested in the sugar industry of the trans-Mississippi territory, and the lessons they have taught from Minnesota on the east to California on the west and from INIoutana and Washington on the north to Ari- zona on the south all tell the same tale. The necessaril}^ intensive farming to make the crop a success makes good farmers out of shift- less farmers; it makes rich farmers out of poor farmers; it makes jDrosperous towns and merchants and bankers and professional men in formerly listless communities; it enhances the value of town prop- erty, and it doubles and quadruples the value of all farm property. On February 16 last the honorable Secretary of Agriculture wrote me as follows: In the United States beet culture has occasioned a large increase in the value of farms devoted to that crop. Recent returns received by the Department as to the value of farm lands in 1905, as compared to their value in 1000, show au increase in the five years mentioned in the sugar farms of the North Cen- tral States of $11.89 per acre, juid in the sugar farms of the Western States no less than $42.49 per acre. For the entire country the average increase in the value of sugar farms was $12.34 per acre, an increase which exceeds that of all other classes of farms, except fruit farms. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 49 WESTERN SUGAR FARMS. The fact is that the increase in value of Western sugar farms from 1000 to 1905 exceeded the total average acreage value of farms and farm improvements in every State in the Union except six in 1900, according to the census returns. Take the case of Garden City, Kans. Senator Swink told me last night that when he went in there three years ago land, including ditch rights, was selling at $6 to $6.50 an acre; that a year or two ago the best farms were selling at $12 to $13 an acre, and now that their new $500,000 beet-sugar jDlant is in operation these same lands are worth from $60 an acre up. This factory will consume the beets grown on 7,000 acres, and with a five-year rotation means that the values of 35,000 acres of land have been increased $50 per acre, or a total added farm value of $1,750,000. and the farmers, after paying $2 to $2.50 per day for field labor are clearing from $30 to $60 per acre, while the average gross return of American wheat and corn farmers is less than $12 per acre. Of course, we are not all farmers. We have a great population in Kansas City, in St. Louis, in Omaha, in Des Moines, in Minneapolis, in Denver, in Salt Lake, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and hundreds of smaller cities in the trans-Mis- sissippi territory, which are directly affected by the growth of this industry, while the cities of the southern trans-Mississippi territory draw tribute from the cane-sugar industry of Louisiana and Texas. The sugar-beet farmers of the trans-Mississippi territory will derive from 20 to 25 million dollars from their present crop of sugar beets, and practically every dollar of it will drift back through our commercial centers. AS A PROMOTER OF POPULATION. Take the case of Oxnard, Cal. When the American Beet Sugar Company went in there to erect a $2,500,000 plant there was no population whatever. To-day it is a flourishing town of 3,500 people. The beet farmers within a radius of 30 miles of that factoiy will receive over $1,000,000 for their present crop of beets, and the ex- penditures for labor, coke, mill supplies, fuel, etc.. will amount to another million dollars. Is it any wonder that this makes a pros- perous community, which enriches the larger near-by commercial centers ? And as to the effect on the railroads. Last year the Southern Pacific received over $900,000 from its Oxnard offices, there being but four points between San Francisco and El Paso — namely, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Jose — where the traffic receipts of the road were greater than from this little new beet- sugar towni. As to the arid portion of the trans-Mississippi territory, it is ab- solutely dependent upon alfalfa and beet sugar for its full develop- ment on account of the necessarily heavy long-haul freight charges to our large Eastern centers of population. S. Doe. 530, 60-1 4 50 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY' OF THE UNITED STATES. FREIGHT PERCENTAGES. Based on present prices the freight on wheat from Utah to Chicago amounts to 43 per cent of its delivered vahie, of barley 62 per cent, of oats 55 j)er cent, and of apples 60 per cent. Alfalfa and sugar beets average the farmer about $5 per ton, but the alfalfa is fed to stock, which brings 5 to 8 cents per pound in Chicago, and the sugar extracted from the beets is worth 4^ to 5^ cents and the freight forms a far smaller percentage of the delivered value of the product. Of practically every other agricultural crop we produce a sur- plus, and the home price is regulated by the price in Europe, while to produce at home the refined sugar we now import in its raw state would annually put nearly $200,000,000 into the pockets of American farmers, laborers, and mechanics. The trans-Mississippi territory is the natural place in which to erect a large portion of the 300 additional factories necessary to produce this product, and the question to-day is as to whether we shall build up 300 new and prosperous valleys in this western country or shall we allow our heritage to slip awa}^ from us and be turned into the hands of a few would-be exploiters of the Philippine Islands ? AN ECONOMIC QUESTION. Both political parties are divided on this subject, which is an eco- nomic and not a political one. In the Senate Committee on the Phil- ippines 60 per cent of the Democrats and 62^ per cent of the Repub- licans voted against the pending Philippine bill and to maintain our home industr3^ A perusal of the printed testimony will show you that this majority in each party felt that neither we nor the native Filipinos had anything to gain, but everything to lose, by sacrificing this great and growing industry in order to enrich a handful of American, British, and Chinese carpetbag exploiters. The}^' pointed out that we had already spent over $500,000,000 on the Philippines and were continuing to spend over $25,000,000 a year on those islands, with no hope of getting any portion of it back. Senator Hale, of Maine, developed the fact that while the Philip- pines purchased enonnous quantities of goods from foreign countries their purchases from us amounted in value to less than was paid to the farmers of one county in his State for their potato crop, and he caused the Secretary of War to admit that whatever changes might be made in our tariff relations with those islands there was no pros- pect of greatly increasing the sale of our goods, as the goods they import can be purchased in other markets for less money than it costs us to produce them. PHILIPPINE TARIFF. It was shown that while we collect 75 per cent of the regular tariff on Philippine products, every dollar of this money is remitted to the Philippine government, instead of being covered into our Treasury, while we pay full duty on every article we send to the islands and allow them to issue a 50-cent dollar with which to pay their laborers, and thus cut the already phenomenally low wage rate in half. It was shown that largely owing to this wage rate of IT cents per day .THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 51 the average cost of sugar production in those islands is but 74 cents per 100 pounds, while our farmers average to receive $2.21 per 100 for the sugar in their beets before ever the factory touches them, or just three times as much as the total cost of production in the Phil- ippine Islands. It was shown that the freight rate from Manila to New York is 24 cents per 100 pounds, or 1 cent per 100 less than the freight rate on the same commodity from Omaha to Chicago, 11 cents less than from Denver to Chicago, and 31 cents less than from Utah to Chicago. Even the Cabinet is split up on this important question, and the President has so far failed to wield the proverbial " big stick " in either direction. The Secretary of Agriculture stands firmly by the home sugar in- dustry, which in nine years he has been instrumental in building up from 40,000 to nearly 400,000 tons, thereby enrichins; our farm- ers to the extent of some $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 annually. On the other hand, the Secretary of War seems utterly indifferent to the interests of the American farmer and laborer, and pooh- poohs the question as to the islands causing us any possible injury under any conditions. Some public men are like Congressman Lacey, of Iowa, who announced himself as a standpatter of Standpatters- ville, and was a standpatter on all except sugar and tobacco. A MIX-UP WITH BOTH PARTIES. The fact of the matter is, it is a sort of mix-up with both parties. In both there seems to be a growing sentiment that we should get rid of this national vermiform appendix, which performs no func- tion, is becoming painful, may become serious, and ought to be cut out. Members of both parties see that the sure way to cement the islands to us for all time is to divert a few hundred millions from the home sugar industry to that of the Philippines, by fostering their sugar industry at the expense of ours. They have also dis- covered that, with the sole exception of a slight discount made by France, no European country makes any reduction on the sugar coming from its colonies; that last year Holland, which owns the island of Java, which produces 1,000,000 tons of sugar a year, took but 12 tons out of that million ; that each pound of it paid full tariff duty, and that the mother country not only supplied its own people with all the sugar they consumed, but exported 500,000,000 pounds to other nations. The best teacher in the world is experience, and the best way to judge a thing is by comparison. Some years ago we entered into a reciprocity treaty with Hawaii, which then produced 9,000 tons of sugar annually. At that time the very maximum capacity of those islands was placed at 11,000 tons and our maximum possible loss of revenue was placed at $400,000 annually. What was the result of that treaty ? In thirty years the Hawaiian sugar production has jumped to 370,000 tons, all of which comes here. Our loss of revenue has averaged $5,000,000 annually, and is now over $13,000,000 per annum. In thirty years we sold them a total of $129,000,000 worth of goods and made them a cash present 52 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. of $153,000,000 in revenue: or, in other words, made them a present of $1.19 for every dollar's worth of ooods they purchased of us. Now, if the sugar production of Hawaii increased 3,400 per cent in thirty years, what could be expected of the Philijjpine product if granted like concessions? Let us compare the conditions of the two groups of islands. PHILIPPINE POSSIBILITIES. The total area of the Philippines is eighteen times as great as that of Hawaii, Avhile the estimated arable area is twenty-one times as great. The native population of Hawaii, from which to draw the labor supply, was between 40.000 and 50.000, while the native population of the Philippines is 7.500,000, or one hundred and fifty times as great. The sugar lands of the Philippines produce more sugar per acre than did the Hawaiian sugar lands when operated in like manner. The freight rate from Hawaii to New York is 27| cents per 100, and it is but 24 cents from Manila to New York. The average wage rate for sugar-plantation labor is $19.76 per month in Hawaii and in the Philippines it is but $4.28 per month. If, with all their superior advantages, the Philippines would in- crease their sugar output no faster than has Hawaii, it still would amount to over 4,000,000 tons in thirty years, and the islands have a caj^acity for producing over 8,000,000 tons annually, while the total American consumption is less than 3,000,000 tons. With these facts before you it should not be difficult to determine whether our Moses in the Cabinet hails from Tama County, Iowa, or from Cincinnati. Ohio. THE SUGAR BEET INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. [Address beforo the fifteenth annual session of the National Irrigation Congress, held at Sacramento, Cal., September 2-6, 1907.] To comprehend fully the vital effect which the production of beet sugar is having, and which it is hoped it will continue to have upon the development of arid America by means of irrigation, it is neces- sary first to revdew briefly the sugar situation of the world. Sugar is at once one of the most recently acquired, the most rapidly increasing, and one of the most important articles of human diet in the world. From its earliest mention until the time of Queen Eliza- beth sugar was used only in the arts and sciences and sold at approxi- mately $1 per pound. Until the beginning of the last century the world's crop of sugar was derived wholly from the cane of the Trop- ics. The four decades following the issuance of a decree by the first Napoleon appropriating 1,000,000 francs for experimental work in connection with the development of the sugar beet were only impor- tant in increasing the quality of the beets, for, in 1840, 95 per cent of the world's sugar crop of about 1,000,000 tons was still derived from the cane of the Tropics. Since 1840 the increase in production and consumption of sugar has amounted to 150 per cent per decade, and now amounts to 12,000,000 tons (60 per cent of which is produced THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 53 from beets), for which the people of the world annually expend over $1,250,000,000. In the early development of the sugar beet it was thought that it would only thrive in certain restricted districts in France and Ger- many. To-day there are over 1,500 beet sugar factories scattered over all but two of the European nations, and they produce one-half of the world's commercial sugar crop. This string of factories, extending from Russia on the north, to the very shores of the Mediterranean on the south, not only supplies the 350,000,000 Europeans with all the sugar they consume, but provides an annual surplus of several million tons which are exported to Great Britain and other countries. In 1864 the people of the United States consumed but 18 pounds of sugar per capita. Last year our per capita consumption was 76 pounds as compared to 90 pounds in Great Britain, and 7 pounds in Italy. Wliat proportions the future sugar crop of the world will reach is problematical, but if the average per capita consumption of the world were as great to-day as it is in Great Britain an annual crop of 70,000,000 tons would be required and at 5 cents per pound would mean an expenditure of $7,000,000,000 for this newly found article of diet. It should not be presumed that Europe has so greatly extended her beet-sugar industry because it can produce sugar at home for less money per pound than it can be purchased for in the Tropics. Such is not the case. Europe long since learned the lesson that even with her so-called " pauper labor " cultivating the most scientifically bred vegetable in the world it was impossible successfully to compete with the peon labor of the Tropics, who, from one planting of an almost indigenous weed, reap from seven to fifteen annual crops. In Europe it is recognized that the cost to the consumer of a pound of sugar is of minor consideration as compared to the vast economic advantages to be secured by producing their sugar at home. This is exemplified by the fact that all European nations levy protecting duties on sugar importations, and while most of the sugar-producing tropical islands of the world are colonies of European nations not one of those nations, with the sole exception of France, makes the slightest tariff concession on sugar from its colonial possessions. The slight tariff concession which France grants to colonial sugars is an amount equal to the freight charges on the product from the colony to the mother country. Little Holland owns the island of Java, which produces 1,000,000 tons of sugar annually, it being, next to Cuba, the largest sugar-pro- ducing island in the world. Holland purchases practically no Java sugar, and the few tons which do come to the mother country are subjected to full duty. Holland, on the other hand, produces from beets all the sugar its people consume, besides exporting vast quantities to other countries. The sturdy Dutchman may love the native Javanese, Holland's " Little Brown Brother," but his home farmer, his own blood and brawn, is closer to his heart than the wily Oriental can ever expect to get. If our national legislators are looking for a universal pi'ecedent on which to construct a fiscal policy for our newly acquired colonies, 54 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. they can easily find it, for even Great Britain, which, for revenue purposes, levies a duty of approximately 1 cent per pound on sugar importations, collects full duty on its importations of colonial sugar. EFFECTS OF SUGAR-BEET CULTURE IN EUROPE. The reason for the adoption of this economic policy by the nations of continental Europe are apparent to those who have studied the situation. In the first place the expansion of the home industry has offered the profitable investment of more than $500,000,000. Second. It distributes among the people of Europe some $400,000,- 000 annually, which would otherwise be sent to the Tropics for sugar. Third. Thev annually draw from the other countries of the world from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 for the surplus sugar they produce and export. Fourth. They have found that the use of the sugar beet to rotate with other crops has reclaimed vast areas of hitherto practically worthless land. Fifth. They find that sugar-beet culture makes good farmers out of shiftless farmers. Sixth. They find, in Germany at least, that the use of the sugar beet as a rotating crop increases the acreage production of the wheat 24 per cent, of barley 25 per cent, of rye 15 per cent, of peas 86 per cent, and of potatoes 102 per cent. There are several reasons for this, but the two main causes are that to produce successfully sugar beets the soil must not only be put in fine tilth but must be cultivated during a large portion of the grow- ing period, and this thorough cultivation has nearh^ as much effect on the following crop as it has on the beet crop.' The second main reason is that as a rule the roots of crops reach only as deep as the land is plowed, the soil underneath being hard and almost impene- trable by tender roots. For other crops you plow but 6 to 7 inches deep and the roots of your crops draw nutriment from that depth only. For sugar beets you subsoil to a depth of 12 to 14 inches, and the small fibrous roots of the beet reach an even greater depth. Wlien your beets are pulled, these little fibrous roots are broken off in the ground and through decay not only add himius to the lower stratum of soil, but leave innumerable minute veins or holes to the very bottom of the subsoiling. "When your grain or other crop is put in the next year, instead of the roots drawing nutriment from only 6 or 7 inches of soil, they follow the little holes left by the fibrous beet roots and the result is that in effect you have doubled your soil without buying or cultivat- ing more acres, and hence have greatly increased your crop, be it wheat or barley or beans or potatoes. Like conditions prevail in the United States, and in arid America there are still more potent reasons for expanding this industry, which is so far-reaching in its economic effects. Arid America has and always will have one tremendous economic handicap — it is located a long distance from our great centers of population, and owing to the necessary long-haul freight charges, we can never expect to ship out low-priced products. Wheat, oats, bar- THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 55 ley, rye, alfalfa and scores of other crops we produce to perfection but can never hope to transport and market as cheaph' as they can be produced in and marketed from the great INIississippi Valley. Throw a bale of alfalfa into a freight car and before it reaches the confines of the county in which it was raised, the freight charges amount to more than the Aalue of the alfalfa. But take that alfalfa, worth, say, $5 per ton, and feed it to stock, and you turn it into a product which is worth from $100 to $150 a ton in Kansas City or Chicago, or San Francisco, and hence will stand shipment. That is why alfalfa is to-day the most important crop grown in arid America. The same conditions apply to sugar beets, which are delivered to the neighboring beet-sugar factory and there turned into granulated sugar which is worth $90 to $110 per ton laid down in Chicago. Of nearly every agricultural crop, arid America can produce in abundance all that her people will ever consume, but when it comes to the production of crops which can be shipped out at a profit and exchanged for the innumerable articles which its people must have but do not produce, alfalfa and sugar beets are of more value than are all other agricultural crops combined — in fact, on the produc- tion of these two crops depends the full development of this desert domain. PROGRESS or THE AMERICAN BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. And how are we in America progressing in the production of beet sugar? In 1888. the production of beet sugar in the United States reached 1,000 tons for the first time in our history. When the present tariff bill was enacted ten years ago, we had but six beet-sugar fac- tories in the United States and produced only 40.000 tons of beet sugar. Last year we had sixty-three factories in operation and pro- duced 483,612 tons of sugar, surpassing for the first time the cane- sugar output of Louisiana and Texas, thus transferring the " Sugar Bowl of the United States " from the South to the West. Last year American farmers received over $22,000,000 for their sugar-beet crop and the industry yielded, nearly as much more to the laborers and other employees of the factories, tlie coal mines, the rail- roads, the lime kilns, and numerous other classes of American industry. Our Department of Agriculture now classes it as the seventh most important agricultural product of the United States, and yet its de- velopment here is in its infancy. AN INDUSTRr OF ARID AMERICA. While the beet-sugar factories of the United States extend from the State of New York on the east to the Pacific coast on the west, and while it is generally considered as being a national industry, it is the child of arid America, and still is. to all intents and purposes, a purely arid American industry. The development of the American beet-sugar industr}^ has been confined largely to arid America for the reason that I have men- tioned — freight. In our eastern States the conditions for the pro- duction of beet sugar are perhaps as favorable as they are here, but here the industry is a necessity^ while there it is not. The eastern 56 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. fanner has at his door a profitable market for whatever surphis crop he produces. The industry has been established in sixteen American States and Territories, twelve of which are wholly or in part in arid America, and there are but four States and Territories in arid America in which it has not been established. Of the sixty-three American beet-sugar factories, thirty-nine, or nearly two-thirds of the total number, are located in arid America. Of the $22,000,000 received last year by American farmers for their sugar beets. $15,000,000, or 70 per cent, went to the farmers of arid America and the Pacific coast. The first successful American beet-sugar factory was erected and is still running at Alameda, less than 100 miles from where we are now assembled, and its original builder still resides there. The largest beet-sugar factory in the world is located in a neigh- boring county, and the second largest factory in the Union is located in the southern end of this State. The first sugar beets in the Avorld to be grow^n under irrigation were produced in Utah by our friends, the Mormons, the pioneer irri- gationists of modern America. Surely no further ])roof should be needed in order to establish the parentage of this promising industry. And now that arid America has invested $100,000,000 in the rearing and bringing of this lusty infant to manhood, she should strive steadfastly to see that his career is fully rounded out by producing at home all the sugar this great nation consumes and thereby reap a reward which would distance any real or mythical king's ransom ever mentioned in history. EFFECTS OF EXPANDING THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. Since Congress decided ten years ago to encourage and foster the beet-sugar industry we have produced 2,000,000 tons of sugar from American-grown beets, for which our farmers have received $90,000,000, while $70,000,000 more has accrued to other forms of American industry. Had this sugar been imported from the Tropics and merely refined in this country, American industry would have profited only to the extent of $6.72 per ton, or a total of less than $1,350,000. Hence, what we have already done has added the net sum of $158,000,000 to the returns of American industry. This 2,000,000 tons, however, has been a mere bagatelle compared to our importations, which now amount to nearly as much per year as we have produced from beets in ten years. While during the past ten years we have been producing this 2,000,000 tons of beet sugar, the revenues collected on our importations of foreign grown sugar have amounted to the enormous sum of $529,000,000, or nearly one-third of all the customs revenue we have collected during this entire period on all other classes of imports combined. We have needed the money, ar.d it has gone a long way toward building our Xavy and supporting our various great departments of government. During this ten-year period all other classes of food products have advanced in price from a minimum of 16 per cent for wheat flour to 46 per cent for pork, or an average of about 30 per cent, while THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 57 similar or greater advances have been made in the price of 'labor, coal, machinery, and all other articles produced by American indus- try. During the same period the foreign price of raw sugar has ad- vanced 7 per cent, and the home price of sugar beets 15 per cent. Considering all these advances which so materially affect the cost of producing sugar, and considering the fact that more than half a billion dollars in customs revenue has been collected on sugar in order to provide national revenue and establish the beet-sugar industry at home, we have naturally to expect a material rise in the home price of sugar. But what are the facts? The New York prices of granulated sugar have advanced from $4.50 per 100 pounds in 1897 to $4.52 per 100 pounds in 190(3. or less than one-half of 1 per cent in ten years. In addition to this, the retail price of sugar in New York has aver- aged to be lower than the retail price in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, the commercial centers of the greatest beet-sugar produc- ing countries in the world. If by fostering this industry of arid America an unjust burden has been laid upon any citizen of any State in the Union, the figures do not show it. The revenues collected have been shared by all the people. East and West; the gain to American industry of $158,000,000 has gone largely to arid America, and the bulk of it has drifted back to our eastern manufacturers in payment of goods we require, but do not produce in arid America. Had this sugar been purchased from the planters of the Tropics practically none of the money paid for it would ever have been re- turned to this country. This is evidenced by our trade balances with Cuba, Santo Domingo, Brazil, and Java, from which countries we pur- chase the bulk of our sugar. "We annually send these countries $-200,- 000,000 in gold in payment for their products, while thev return to us but $50,000,000 and expend the other $150,000,000 in Enro])e in the purchase of products which are common to this country. OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPANSION. The sugar bills of the American people amount to $850,000,000 a year, or more than $1,000,000 a day for each working day of the year. In addition to consuming all the sugar produced from the beets of arid America and the cane of Louisiana. Texas, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, we are annually importing 1.800.000 tons from foreign tropical islands. Our enormous exports of breadstuffs have naturally been pointed to with pride for many years past, but notwithstanding our large home sugar industry on the mainland and in our island possessions, in 1905, aside from the receipts for our barley exports, it required more money to settle our foreign raw sugar bills than all we received for all our exports of breadstuffs and preparations of breadstuffs, including corn and corn meal, oats and oat meal, rye and rye flour, and wheat and wheat flour combined. It took the value of all the wheat we raised on 8.500.000 acres, or one-fifth of the entire wheat acreage of the United States, to pay for the sugar we imported from foreign lands and which we could have produced on 1.500,000 acres of American sugar beets. As a nation we would have *' broke even,'' as the saying goes, if we had given up 58 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 8,500,000 acres of wheat sowings, planted a million and a half acres of it to sugar beets and allowecl the other 7,000,000 acres to lie fallow or have turned it into golf links. To produce this sugar at home would mean the investment of $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 in the erection of several hundred addi- tional beet-sugar factories and the consequent building up of a like number of prosperous communities. EFFECT OF PAST LEGISLATION. Ten years ago it looked as though we were in a fair way to pro- duce by this time all the sugar we consume. During the first five years of this ten-year period capital rushed headlong into the industry, but the farmers were apathetic, for it was a new crop. Capitalists increased the number of factories 600 per cent in five years, while the farmers increased their sowings but 150 per cent. The projectors of new factories were crying for more beets, and any reasonably good community that offered contracts for from 1.000 to 2,000 acres of beets could secure the erection of a $500,000 or a $1,000,000 factory. During the second five j^ears of this period the reverse conditions have prevailed. The farmers have increased their plantings nearly 600 per cent, while the capitalists have increased the number of fac- tories less than 100 per cent, and to-day scores of excellent locations, especially in arid America, offering 5,000 to 6,000 acres, signed up for five and six years, are unable to induce capitalists to give them a second thought or to invest a dollar. Last year alone our beet-sugar output increased 50 per cent, and yet there is being erected in the entire United States but one new plant for the coining campaign. Five years ago the sugar output per factory averaged but 2,500 tons, while last year it averaged over 7,500 tons. The apathy concerning the industry has been shifted from the minds of the farmers to the minds of the capitalists. At first thought it seems strange that capitalists would pour millions into the industry when beets were not to be had, while now, with offers of more beets than they can slice, they refuse to invest. Xaturally there must be a cause for this reversal of conditions. The present zeal of the farmers to grow beets comes from their having learned that the culture of sugar beets pays better than that of any other crop. The apathj' of the capitalists was first caused bj' our annexation of Hawaii and Porto Eico and the loAvering of the duty on Cuban sugar and thereby admitting free, or at a reduced rate of duty, over 2,000,000 tons of sugar per annum. When the agitation for the free entry of Cuban sugar began, eighty-six new beet-sugar factories to cost" $50,000,000 were in course of organization. All were immedi- ately abandoned and but six of them have since been revived. As a result of such legislation, capital has seen the Hawaiian sugar crop increase from 9,000 to 400,000 tons, the Porto Rican crop from 35,000 to 220.000 tons, and the Cuban crop from a few hundred thousand to 1,500,000 tons, all of which naturally comes to this country, thereby reducing the prospective market for a like amount of home-grown beet sugar. NearTv $250,000,000 of American money which should have gone into the" home sugar industry has been diverted to the sugar industry THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 59 of those islands by reason of our legislation favoring their sugar product, for there it can secure cheap labor, while here it can not. Do you wonder that capital hesitates? If the more than 2,000,000 tons of sugar now annually produced in these islands by means of American capital were being produced in the United States, Ameri- can industr}^ would be profiting to the extent of over $170,000,000 annually. EFFECT OF ANTICIPATED LEGISLATION. But. it is not past but anticipated legislation which to-day so securely bars the doors and is preventing capital from embarking in this industry of arid America. It can stand what has been done, but it fears the future. It sees American troops in Cuba, and the efforts which are being made by the American sugar producers in that island for its annexation and the free admittance of their sugar to this market, and capital knows that Cuba is capable of producing 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 tons of sugar at a less cost than sugar can be produced in the United States from either beets or cane. More than all, just as beet-sugar capital had begun to get its " sec- ond wind " after being hit by free tropical sugar from both sides of the world and was gradually returning to the industry, acute agita- tion for the free introduction of Philippine sugar gave it a body blow from which it has not yet recovered. These astute, well-in- formed men of millions know that the arable area of the Philippines is five times as great as is the combined area of Cuba, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, and that the population is four times as great. They know that while the prevailing wage rate on the sugar-beet farms of the United States is $40 to $65 per month, on the cane fields of Porto Rico $13, in Hawaii $20, and in Cuba $20 to $26 ; in the Philip- pines it is but $4.29 per month. They know that while we already produce more sugar than we consume west of the Missouri River, and must ship our surplus east at a freight rate of 60 cents per 100 from the Pacific coast, 35 cents from Denver, and 25 cents from Omaha to Chicago, the freight rate on the same commodity from Iloilo and Manila to New York is but 24 cents per 100 pounds. They know that even with the crudest methods of cultivation and milling now prevailing in the Philippines — whereby there is secured a yield of half a crop of cane, whereby one-half of the juice of this half crop is lost in extraction and nearly one-half of the remaining juice is lost in the boiling — the Philippines yet are able to lay down sugar in the port of New York at a cost far less than the amount the farmers of arid America are now receiving for the sugar in their beets before ever the factory has touched them. They know that with modern mills and methods in the Philippines and the free entry of Philippine sugar to our market it would soon be impossible for the American factories to pay a dollar a ton for beets, and that our farmers could not produce them at that price. Starting with but one-eighteenth the area and one one-hundred-and- sixtieth of the population, they have seen the sugar crop of Hawaii increase over 4,000 per cent as a result of legislative favors similar to those which are being demanded for the Philippines, which de- mands include the free entry of their sugar to our markets, the 60 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. importation of contract coolie Chinese labor, and the raising of the present acreage limit of corporate sugar estates from 2.500 to 25,000 acres. For four years past capital has observed our Secretary of War lobbying for one or the other or all of these bills at every session of Congress, and is aware of his declarations that until it is secured he will continue to labor for it at every session of Congress so long as he is in public office. These are the unsettled conditions which exist to-day and which have stopped absolutely the erection of new factories. Five years ago the expansion of the industry rested largel,v with the farmers. The farmers have since come to the front with the beets and the output of sugar per factory has been increased over 200 per cent. As a rule the existing factories are to-day being operated to their limit. They can handle no more beets, while the farmers are begging for new factories, in the erection of which exists the only possibility of expanding the industry. Not until Congress abandons its hesitating, its vacillating policy and assures capital in so far as it can as to whether it will once and for all take to its bosom the naked peon half savage of the Orient, or the intelligent, well-housed farmer of its own flesh and blood, not until that time can we expect to see new sugar factories plastered all over arid America, or else see them plastered all over the Philip- pine Islands. PHILIPPINE FALLACIES. Advocates of Philippine tariff reduction state that sugar and tobacco are the principal productions of the islands, and that our gen- eral tariff on Philippine products is the prime factor which induces prosperity or depression throughout the archipelago; concealing the fact that over 76 per cent of the islands' total exports are already per- mitted to enter our ports absolutely free of duty, and that 82 per cent of Philippine products actually entering our ports pass through our custom-houses without being subjected to the imposition of any duty whatsoever. They represent that by collecting a duty on Philippine products we are profiting at the expense of our ^ wards:" but they fail to state that on the 16 per cent of Philippine products on which we collect any duty whatever, we collect but 75 per cent of the regular tariff rates imposed upon like products coming from other countries, and that the entire 75 per cent so connected does not go into our Treasury at all, but is covered into a special fund and remitted to the Philippine gov- ernment, tht^reby reducing by that amount the burden of local taxa- tion imposed upon the Filipino people, while American products entering the Philippines are subjected to the imposition of their maximum rates of duty. And how does this work out? We afford them a market for one- half of their exports, and as Senator Hale developed when he had Secretary Taft before the Philippine Committee of the Senate, of their $30,000,000 worth of annual imports, the value of the portion which they buy of us amounts to less than the farmers of one county in Maine annually receive for the one crop of potatoes. They lead the American people to believe that agriculture through- out the archipelago is prostrated because Congress fails to eliminate THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 61 the tariff on their sugar and tobacco ; but they fail to state that 90 per cent of all the sugar and 80 per cent of all the tobacco grown in the Philippines is at present produced on two of the 3,141 islands comprising the group, and hence if the statements of the friends of Philippine tariff* reduction are accepted we must take it for granted that a futrher tariff reduction on these two products grown on two islands (and those not the largest in the archipelago) is going to bestow everlasting peace and prosperity on the people of the other 3,139 islands, which have as much to do with the production of the sugar and tobacco crop of the Philippines as the people of Maine have to do with the production of the wheat crop of the United States. They tell us that the distress is general, and would be immediately relieved by the passage of a bill granting free access of their sugar and tobacco to our markets; but they fail to state that less than 280,000 acres, or only 7.7 per cent of the 3,247,112 acres now under cultivation in the Philippines, are devoted to sugar and tobacco, and thus we must stupidly believe that a further concession made on the products raised on these 280,000 acres will eternally enrich the people who are raising other crops on some three million other acres. They tell us that the passage of a bill removing our tariff on their sugar and tobacco would gain for us the confidence of the entire Filipino population in our benevolent intentions; but they fail to state that of the 7,635,000 inhabitants of the Philippine Islands less than 80,000 — or about 1 per cent — are engaged in the production and manufacture of sugar and tobacco, and so we must further tax our credulity and blindly believe that the enrichment of a few foreign and other planters who employ 80,000 peon laborers at an average wage of $4.29 per month will in some occult manner bring joy and plenty to the remaining 7,5.55,000 Filipinos who are peacefully en- gaged in the production of hemp, cocoanuts, and other crops. They tell us that the small amount of sugar produced in the Phil- ippine Islands could have no appreciable effect on the expansion of the home sugar industry if all of it were unloaded on our markets; but they fail to state that, while" less than a million and a half acres planted to either cane or beets will produce an amount of sugar equal to our entire importation, in the Philippine Islands are 60,000,000 acres of uncleared arable land, owned by the colonial government, a large portion of which is as rich sugar land as is to be found in the world, and that one of the main objects of the proposed legislation is to enable the Philippine government to parcel out a portion of this vast area in 25,000-acre blocks to sixty corporate sugar estate exploiters. The sugar and tobacco industries are as yet side issues in the Philippines, but they have the area, the soil, the climate, the popula- tion, the freight rate, and the infinitesimal wage rate absolutely to swamp the home industry, as they have already arrested its develop- ment, if we accede to the demands of would-be American exploiters who are so actively urging the passage of this legislation. It is " up to you " to advise your Representatives in Washington as to your desires in this matter, in order that they may intelligently carry them out. and you can not do it too soon for your own protec- tion!^ for there will be no use of locking the barn after the horse has been stolen. 62 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE— ITS DEVELOPMENT UNDER HON. JAMES WILSON. [Address before the eighteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- gress, held at Muskogee, Okla., November 19-22, 1907.] President Loveland. Gentlemen of the congress, we have an ardent supporter of this congress, a faithful worker in this congress for many years, who, at the personal request of j'our . president, pre- pared an article on one of the most important industries in the trans- Mississippi section, and I will call upon Hon. Truman G. Palmer, secretary of the American Beet-Sugar Association, to tell you some- thing of the beet-sugar industry, which is of such great importance to so many of our gi'eat trans-Mississippi States. [Applause.] Address of Truman G. Palmer on " The Department of Agricul- ture." Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow Delegates to the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress: The science of agriculture and the character, extent, and importance of the work of our Federal Department of Agriculture, are probably less appreciated than those in almost any other line of human endeavor. While Congress is appropriating nearl}^ a billion dollars annually for the construction of battle ships, for maintaining an army in the far-off Philippines, and for a multitude of other purposes which yield us no revenue, but on the contrary load us down with a greater and greater annual burden, it grudgingly grinds out an appropria- tion of less than 1 per cent of this amount for agriculture, which always has and always will furnish the wealth to foot these enormous expenditures. Ages ago we were told that " the first shall be last and the last shall be first," and perhaps the time will come when, whatever trim- ming may be necessitated on other appropriation bills, agriculture will have as many millions as its chief can profitably employ. It is not often that people stop to consider the fact that the quality and the yield of practically every seed, slip, bulb, and tree which we put in the ground is the result of the most fascinating, and by far the most important, science in the world. Many of us enjoy a " New England boiled dinner " occasionally, but how few stop to think that a few generations ago the vegetables employed in it were merely tough, fibrous, unedible wild roots. The wild, uncultivated lettuce, for instance, has a few long, flat, slender, light green leaves, which look something like mullen leaves, and they lie as close to the ground as do those of the dandelion. This worthless, uninviting weed of the fields has been so transformed by scientists that to-day it is our most popular relish, pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate ; and if you will step into the Government greenhouses at Washington you can see the original weed and observe the work which is still being carried on in crossing it with numerous domesticated species in the effort to produce a still more attractive variety. So it is throughout both the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom. To-day we " build " a steer as much as we build a house, THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 breeding on weight where it is worth the most money per pomi'd, and breeding off weight where it is worth the least money per pound. There are no limitations to the work, no possibility of ever reach- ing the apex, but each forward step adds millions and some of them hundreds of millions of dollars to our material wealth and pros- perity. To some of these I will allude later on. Considering the early history of the Department of Agriculture, it is not to be wondered at that some misinformed people imagine that, tucked up under the roof of the Patent Office, there peacefully reposes a fiat-top pine desk and a few gunny sacks of garden seeds over which swings a strip of pasteboard bearing the inscription, " Department of Agriculture." Nor is it strange that in their imagination the principal business of Secretary Wilson and his one or two clerks is to do up neat little packages of seeds and dole them out to Congressmen from the rural districts to send to their farmer constituents. Time was, and not so very long ago at that, when this impression was true in the main, and the forging ahead by this gTeat Department has been unaccompanied by any blare of trumpets such as is fre- quently heard from other house tops. When the Secretary of the Navy asks for an extra forty million dollars to add five new- battle ships to our fleet in order that the great good may be accomplished of aweing the world with our greatness; or when the Secretary of War asks for a few extra tens of millions in order to send more troops to the Philippines to impress the natives with our benevolent intentions, the whole world hears of it. But when at a cost of a few thousand dollars the Secretary of Agriculture annexes to our products a new variety of plant which adds twenty- five or fifty million dollars a year to the wealth of the nation, few people ever hear of it. Yet this is what is going on day after day and year after year and the agTicultural wealth and prosperity so produced is what makes it possible for our other Secretaries to secure their vast annual appropriations. HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT. From the establishment of this Government until 1839, the science of agriculture received no consideration in the appropriation bills passed by Congress and the present Department of Agriculture is the outcome of a suggestion made in that year by the Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, of Connecticut, then Commissioner of Patents. At Mr. Ellworth's suggestion. Congress appropriated $1,000 for the purpose of collecting and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investi- gations, and preparing agricultural statistics. The work was continued from j^ear to year by the various Commis- sioners of Patents until 18G2, when Congress provided for an inde- pendent commissioner. For the next quarter of a century, during which period much of this great trans-Mississippi territory was being opened up and brought under the plow, the Federal work in behalf of this greatest of all industries was confined to the meager efforts of a commissioner, who, of course, was not entitled to a seat with the President's official family of advisors. 64 THE BEET SUGAR, INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. In 1889 Congress raised the Department to the first rank, making its head a member of the Cabinet, and appropriated about $1,000,000 for carrying on the work. Congress was willing to appropriate a million or so a year for this Department, but the heads of it found it difficult to devise uses for even such a small amount, and year after year the unexpended por- tion of the apropriation was returned to the general Treasury. Notwithstanding this lethargy, much immediate good was accom- plished and the foundation was laid for greater things in the future when some one should be found who would grasp the golden op- portunity set before him. During the period in which we were paying so little attention to scientific agriculture, but were multiplying our so-called sage brush farmers by the millions, European nations had been devoting much attention to the subject and had built up great departments of agri- culture, so that as their population became more and more dense and the farms smaller and smaller, the increased production per acre through better farming methods and the introduction of new crops enabled them not only to maintain but to raise their standard of living. THE DEPAKTMENT UNDER JAMES WILSON. William INIcKinley was not a farmer, but he was a student who thoroughly appreciated the economic importance of agricuhure to this nation. Ever since their Congressional days, McKinley had known James Wilson intimately, and when in 189() he was elected President, he decided that Wilson should have the portfolio of agriculture and would not take no for an answer. Wilson had served the people of his State both in the legislature, in Congress, and as president of the Iowa State Agricultiu-al College. He had retired from public life with the full determination never to reenter it, and was peacefully engaged in operating his extensive Iowa farm on purely scientific principles. McKinley succeeded, however, and Wilson went into his Cabinet. From this time on the chronic anaemic condition of the Depart- ment of Agriculture began to yield as the rich red blood was pumped into its veins. Wilson's desire was to extend the ramifications of the Department not only throughout this country, but throughout the world, and thus lay at our farmers' feet the seed, the slips, the trees, the bulbs, from every civilized portion of the globe. He wished to teach our farmers how best to produce both foreign and native prod- ucts, how to conserve our soil fertility, our forests, and our moisture. INCREASED APPROPRIATIONS. But all of this meant scientists and explorers and chiefs of bu- reaus and clerks and stenographers and huge amounts of printed matter to disseminate the information gathered, all of Avhich would require vast sums of mone3^ The customary million or so Avould not go very far toAvard carrying out his ideas. It would not even enable him to make a start at it; Congress must be induced to double the regular appropriation at least, or he would be compelled to adopt the easy-going methods of his predecessors. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 He appealed to Congress for more money for the use of nearly every bureau in the Department. He was called before the House and Senate Committees on xVgriculeure to explain why he asked for an additional $25,000 for this bureau. $50,000 for that one, and a still larger addition for another. The older members of these committees Avere only familiar with the easy-going methods which had prevailed, and they were unable to understand how a new man could make good use of such large increases. However, even what he asked for did not amount to much when compared to what the other Departments- were getting, and partly out of curiosity to see what he really would do with the money, they thought they would humor him once, and gave him nearly all he asked for. Fact is, they have been humoring him ever since, for with each succeeding year he asks for more and more money, until now he is getting eight millions a year, almost enough to build one battle ship, and Congress begins to realize that every million exjDended in this direction is adding ten, or twenty, or fifty millions to the wealth of the nation. The appropriations for the different bureaus have been doubled and tripled and quadrupled, and in many cases far more than that. As an illustration, take the case of forestry, concerning wdiich important subject we have heard much in recent years. Wilson was familiar with forestry work throughout the world, and was fully alive to its vast importance not only to our present population, but more especially to future generations. In 1897 the agricultural appropriation bill carried but $20,000 for this Bureau of Forestry. By 1900 it had been doubled. In five years, or in 1902, it was increased to nearly $150,000; then to $254,000: $329,000: $400,000: $793,000: $1,000,000: and for the present year it will be $1,380,000. which is $200,000 more than the total appropriation for the entire Department in 1890, and as com- pared with the 1897 appropriation for this bureau, is an increase of 6,900 per cent. In 1897 the total number of employees of the Department, both in Washington and elsewhere, was 2,444. At that time the chiefs of bureaus had whole suites of rooms and the clerks were so far apart they looked lonesome, while all seemed idle and listless. To-day every room in the building is crowded with clerks and stenographers who are huddled in as close as ants in a hill, while the chiefs must content themselves with a tucked up little office, or with desk room among numerous assistants. A multitude of small annex buildings have been constructed, so many in fact it looked at one time as though they would soon be scattered all over the Mall. These buildings were filled to overflowing as fast as erected. In addition to this, a large building had to be rented for the Bureau of Chemistry, another for the Bureau of Soils, another for the Bureau of Forestry, another for a seed warehouse, another for pure food work, and dozens of others for other bureaus, until to-day the Depart- ment of i^griculture is so spread about that some of the bureaus are from a half mile to a mile apart, and the Department, in addition to occupying all of its own buildings, is paying out some $50,000 a year in rentals. S. Doc. 530, 60-1 5 66 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES, A magnificent new, white marble building for the Department is in course of construction and it is the pride of the Secretar3^ But since it was begun, a couple of 3^ears ago, the Department has grown so that instead of tearing down the old building, as was contemplated, there won't be room in the new building to care for the bureaus which are scattered about the city in rented buildings. The Department now employs over 9,100 people, and all who are located in Washington are crowded almost beyond endurance. Of the total number of employees, 2,023 are scientists, ranking at the head of their proferssions. Some of these men are located in Wash- ington, others are scattered about the country studying all sorts of agricultural problems, while others are ransacking every portion of the civilized world for seeds and plants and trees and bulbs and methods which can be used to advantage in this country. No other governmental Dei^artment, college, or private institution in the world employs such a number of scientists or scientific specialists of greater ability, be they chiefs or assistants, and recog- nizing the United States Department of Agriculture as the foremost institution of its kind in the world, the nations of Europe are now sending their scientists here seeking information. Supplemented by the effort of able assistants, this accomplishment of ten years of labor is the result of competent administrative ability, without which no great enterprise Avas ever created. Two-thirds of our entire national revenues are expended for wars, past and future, while less than 1 per cent of it is spent for the direct benefit of agriculture, which always has and always will replenish our war chests. For the direct benefit of our 40,000,000 rural population, Ave are expending 20 cents per capita per annum but $1,39 per farm or less than 1 cent per acre and the value of our present crop alone ($7,500,- 000,000) is sufficient to operate our Department of Agriculture for OA-er 900 years, I once asked Secretary Wilson how much additional money he could find good use for with each succeeding year. After consider- ing it for a few moments, he replied : " If each year Congress would increase my appropriation by a million dollars, I could make CA'ery dollar of it yield the American people a hundredfold," SOME ACHIEArEMENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT. And what has been accomplished by all this work — I could not begin to cover it if I talked to you constantly during CA'ery session of this Congress. I can only touch a feAV high places and leave the balance to your imagination. You Avill a])i)reciate this more fully Avhen I tell you that the De- partment annually issues more than 1,100 separate and distinct pub- lications in Avhich are comprised more than 50,000 pages of matter. More than 12,000,000 copies of its various publications are issued annually, and considering its great bulk of more than 1,000 pages, the annual edition of 500,000 copies of the Department Yearbook, which costs $300,000, is the largest publication in the Avorld. It takes nearly a million dollars a year to foot the bills of the publi- cation department alone, in order to lay before the people the result of the work of the Department scientists. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 67 THE " WASHINGTON NAVEL " ORANGE. From an economic point of view, probably the greatest achieve- ment of the Department under the old regime was the introduction of the seedless •' Washington Navel " orange. The wife of the Ameri- can Consul at Bahia, Brazil, sent the Department three little orange trees of this variety. One of these was forwarded to Florida, one to California and the third was planted in one of the Department greenhouses at Washing- ton. The one sent to Florida died, the one planted in Washington is still thriving, while the third, planted at Kiverside Cal., has fur- nished all the cuttings either by first or subsequent descent for all the orchards of that variety in the State. The bulk of the California orange crop is of the navel variety, and last year the value of the entire crop was $23,000,000, and the rail- roads received $11,000,000 more for hauling it to market. KAFFIR CORN. Kaffir corn was first seen in this country at the exhibit of the Orange Free State at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, but it was not introduced until the eighties, when the Department sent samples to something over 1,000 correspondents. To-day Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas are growing from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 acres of this prod- uct, the annual yield being valued at $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. SORGHUM. At an early day sorghum was introduced here from France by the Commissioner of Patents, who had charge of our agricultural work. To-day a million and a third acres yield our farms some $20,000,000. .'V, Y 'f. RICE. Some years ago the Department established a station on the Gulf coast and conducted some rice experiments in Louisiana and Texas. As a result a large amount of capital was invested in the industry, constructing great irrigation works and planting vast areas of low land to rice. The industry moved on apace, but was confronted with one great drawback. From a barrel of rice (110 pounds) only 40 pounds of head rice (or 36 per cent) could be secured, the balance of the kernels being broken in the threshing and handling. The rice growers appealed to the Department for assistance and in 1898 Doctor Knapp was sent to China and Japan to study the ques- tion at first hands and secure a seed rice which would obviate the dif- ficulty. Doctor Knapp spent many months in the rice-growing dis- tricts of China and Japan and brought back a quantity of many varieties of seed. Result — Louisiana and Texas now annually produce four to five million barrels of rice, largely a short kernel, Japanese variety, and instead of a breakage of 64 per cent of the kernels in the threshing the breakage is but 19 per cent. 68 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. BULBS. We annually import $1,000,000 worth of bulbs, mostly from Hol- land. The Secretary concluded that our farmers instead of the Dutchman ought to have this money. He sent his scientists out to discover where w^e could best produce them. In the State of Washington they found ideal soil and climatic conditions and began their experiments. Success crowned their efforts- Last spring I saw at the Department most gorgeous crocuses, daf- fodils, tulips, hyacinths, jonquils, and lillies, all produced from State of Washington bulbs, and the Department claims that in many cases the quality is even superior to any of the bulbs which can be secured in Europe. CAMPHOR. In most smokeless powders, camphor is a necessary ingredient. The camphor of commerce comes almost exclusively from the island of Formosa, and the island of Formosa is owned by Japan. Look- ing into the future, it would seem to be desirable that, if possible, we produce our camphor at home. The Department is at present carrying on experimental camphor work in Florida and Texas. In the latter State they have several hundred trees already growing, with several thousand more ready to put into the field. In Florida it has 50 acres to be occupied by trees from seeds de- rived from various sources in order to secure a product of the highest camphor content. A distilling plant on a small commercial scale will test apparatus being speciall}^ devised by the Department, some of which has already stood the test so well as to seem to justify patent- ing. While the experiments are confined to two States, there seems every reason to believe that camphor will do well in the Gulf strip where the temperature does not fall re^rularly or for any considerable time beloAv 15° or 20° F. If this experiment turns out as expected, not only -will $600,000 a year be kept at home, but an important military article will be at our command, instead of being subject to the will of a foreign and perhaps hostile nation. TEA. AVe annually import about 100,000,000 pounds of tea, for which we send to the ()rient, $14,500,000, the average import price being 14^ cents per pound. It might almost be said that no one ever dreamed that even a poor grade of tea could be produced in the United States. But Secretary Wilson thought otherwise. After a most careful investigation he established an experimental tea station in South Carolina, the De- partment furnishing the scientists to aid private capital in operating two tea farms. Last year these two farms produced 26,000 pounds of tea, which sold at 60 to 80 cents per pound at retail, and netted the producer 30 to 40 cents per pound, or tAvo to three times the average price paid for imported tea. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 69 Experts declare that the South Carolina tea is equal to the most delicate and finest teas which come to this country, and it took the gold medal at the Paris Exposition. The production at home of all the tea we consume hinges on the question of labor and the Secretary expects that some day thousands and tens of thousands of our little pickaninnies will be engaged in j)icking tea leaves. HOPS. A few years ago disease attacked the x\merican hop plants and it became necessary to secure a new stock or abandon hop growing. An expert was dispatched to Bohemia with instructions to secure 10,000 hop plants. After making a careful study of Bohemia hop culture, the expert arranged for the shipment of the requisite number. AVlien the Bo- hemian authorities learned what was about to take place they refused to allow the plants to be shipped, and the Department expert returned to Washington. But it was imperative that we have those plants and back the expert was sent, with instructions to pick up hop plants in small quantities wherever he could procure them, have them packed immediately, go with them to the express office, and see that they were shipped. He was instructed to follow up this procedure until he had shipped 10,000 plants. When he had shipped 8,000 he cabled that he could secure no more plants. The reply was that we must have at least 10.000, and he must get them. In other hop-growing districts he met with unexpected success, and when he had forwarded 20,000 plants was allowed to return. We are still growing hops. Our annual production of 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 pounds yields the American farmer from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. DATES. We annually send abroad over $500,000 for the purchase of dates, and within one year from the time he accepted the fortfolio of agri- culture Secretary Wilson had set the machinery in motion whereby Arizona and California could be presented witli a new source of revenue. The agricultural explorers of the Department have since explored all the gTeat date regions of the world. They have penetrated to the oases of the Sahara. They have gone up the Suez Canal ; have made trips up the Persian Gulf and along the Tigris Eiver; into Beluchi- stan and throughout the coastal regions of Arabia. They have brought back thousands of date palms by pulling them across the desert on camel backs and shipping them by steamers to this countrv% many of these palms being presents from the shieks of Arabia and Algeria. Most of these date palms are growing in Arizona and southern California, and some of them direct from the Sahara have fruited in this country two years after their arrival. Enough of the imported varieties have fruited to prove conclusively that good dates can be grown in the Southwest, the result being of such a character that the demands for seeding dates is greater than the Department has been able to supply. 70 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. Private enterprise has now taken the matter up, a large number of dat_e gardens are being planted, and we will soon be producing instead of importing our dates. RESEEDING THE "WESTERN RANGES. The reseeding of our great Western stock ranges has given satis- factory results, particularly on the moist mountain meadows, where the Department has introduced timothy, redtop, red clover, white clover, and blue grass. It can be safely said that the seeding of these tame grasses will at least double the carrying capacity of the pastures and annually add millions and tens of millions of dollars to the value of our live-stock output. ALFALFA INTRODUCTIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS. The great importance and widespread popularity of alfalfa is a matter of common knowledge. This crop is the foundation of agri- culture in all the irrigated regions west of the one-hundredth merid- ian. Without it profitable farming in this area would scarcely be possible, and through the securing by selection and introduction of drought-resistant strains it is rapidly becoming an important factor even in the dry farming of the great plains and transmountain areas. Indeed, there is not a State in the Union in which some examples of successful alfalfa culture can not be found. The introduction of new varieties is of the utmost interest. The Department of Agriculture began this work during the nineties, when the now widely advertised Turkestan alfalfa was sent in by one of its explorers. Since that time this work of introduction has been con- tinued by means of agricultural explorers, through our diplomatic representatives in foreign countries, and through correspondence with missionaries and other interested parties throughout the world. A new variety has been secured from Peru, which is grown through- out the high table-lands of the Andes, suitable only for cultivation under irrigation in the mild climate of our extreme SoutliAvest. where it promises to yield from one to two crops more than ordinary alfalfa. A hardy, yellow-flowered form from the dry steppes of western Siberia, where the mercury sometimes freezes without snow, suitable for the agriculture of our northern prairie region, was one of the results of the exploration of 1906. An Arabian form for use in mild climates, similar to the Peruvian or Andean form already mentioned, has also been secured. In addition, alkali resistant types from the deserts of Asia Minor and northern Africa. A cold resistant strain from the i)lnins of noi-thern Mongolia and a form from some of the oases of the Sahara, able to thrive under higher temperatures than will the one commonly grown, have been secured in this work. As soon as these new introductions are received they are turned over to the experts of the Department and investigations are imme- diately instituted to determine the particular climatic environments, soils, methods of cultivation, etc.. also wliy they succeed or why they fail. An advance knowledge of these facts prevents thousands of dollars of loss annually to farmers, through attempts to cultivate under unsuitable conditions new and imperfectly understood varie- ties. It furthermore prevents the setbacks which invariably result THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 from the failures usually attending the introduction of new and little known crops. PUKE FOOD AND DRUG ACT. The carrying out of the provisions of our recently enacted pure food and drug act is a neAv burden as well as honor to the Depart- ment of Agriculture, where it comes under the direct supervision of that veteran, world-famous chemist, Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry. Doctor Wiley could interest you for hours talking on this intricate work, but time permits only an allu- sion to it. Already nearly twenty chemical laboratories have been established in as many cities scattered throughout the land. In these laboratories over 100 expert chemists are engaged in examining and testing sam- ples of imported or interstate commerce products, with a view both as to the contents and branding of the packages. Over forty inspectors are engaged in visiting factories, inspecting raw materials, sanitary conditions, and procuring samples from manufacturers and dealers and sending them to the nearest labora- tory for analysis. In Washington it requires over fifty clerks to attend to the details of this work, which is conferring blessings upon every man, woman, and child in the country. STATE EXPERIMENT STATIONS. The annual appropriation bill of the Department carries an appro- priation for the experiment stations of all the States, where the Fed- eral scientists work in conjunction wath the State scientists. At these stations the work covers a vast range of subjects, but I will only allude briefly to live stock. At the Fort Collins, Colo., sta- tion they are at work on the breeding of American carriage horses. In Vermont they are breeding the famous Morgan horse: in Wyo- ming a type of sheep suitable to range conditions; in Minnesota a milking shorthorn, while in Maine they are at work developing new and better breeds of poultry. SEED ADULTERATION. No more despicable form of adulteration exists than seed adultera- tion, where the loss to the purchaser not only represents the value of the seed, but the cost of cultivation, and the season's loss of the use of the land. I know of a case not a hundred miles from here where a widow w^o- man sowed several acres of grass and the seed proved to be only weed seed. In the seed-testing laboratory of the Department of Agricul- ture I have seen samples of commercial alfalfa and clover and other seeds separated from the weed seed, where the weed seed formed by far the greater portion of the sample. The Department gives special attention to the examination of the quality, germinating power, and purity of vegetable, flower, forage, and grass seeds and its campaign against the adulteration of both domestic and imported seeds has resulted in saving our farmers an almost endless amount of money and effort. 72 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. Means to prevent absolutely this heinous offense is now undei' con- sideration and the reliable seedsmen of the country are behind the movement. PESTS AND BLIGHTS. It is as important that pests and blights be eradicated, as it is that new plants be introduced, and the number which have been checked or eradicated by the Department is legion. It is safe to say that our farmers are being saved far more than $100,000,000 a year as a result of this class of work alone. The work of the Department in inducing the apple farmers to use arsenical sprays against the coddling moth is saving them $20,000,000 annually. The San Jose scale which at one time threatened to eliminate not only our fruit trees, but our shade trees as well, has been practically eradicated by the use of the lime-salt-sulphur spra}^ so extensively used by the advice of the Department. The cotton boll weevil, which causes an annual loss of $25,000,000 is being controlled wherever the recommendations of the Department are adopted; and the cotton worm, which once caused such havoc, is virtually a thing of the past. I once was present when a delegation of Massachusetts cranberry growers appealed to the Secretary for help. A blight had stricken their plants. One of the delegation had lost a $4,000 crop, another $6,000, and another $12,000, while numerous others had suffered lesser losses. The Department's annual appropriation bill was then pending at the east end of the Capitol. The Secretary assured them that the Dex3artment could, and would gladly assist them, but that everything depended upon the size of his pending appropriation bill. He suggested that if the Massa- chusetts Senators and Congressmen had enough influence with their fellow-members to induce them to grant what he was asking for, the aid of the Department was certain. Those cranberry growers took the hint, boarded the first car for the Capitol, and they did not leave Washington until the entire Massachusetts delegation had been pledged not only to vote for, but to Avork for the bill. The Secretary got his appropriation, his scientists got busy, and the cranberry blight was eradicated. SKKIJ AND I'r.AXr INTUODITCTION. One of the most interesting as well as important classes of work of the Department is that which is conducted by the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction and Distribution, under which the foreign explorations are conducted. The office was established early in 181>8 and is part of the Bureau of Plant industry over which Doctor Galloway so ably presides. Since its establishment there have been introduciMl tlirough this office exactly 21,.')31 plant shi])ments. These thousands of new introductions vary in qnnntilies from a single seed to several tons of seeds; from a single cutting to large shipments of living plants. The range of crops covered is remarkiible--from new \arieties of oats for Alaska to East Indian manaos for Porto Eico, Hawaii, and THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 73 Florida. Practically every condition of climate and soil in the world can be duplicated in the United States and its possessions, and the introductions of the last few years have covered this whole range of climate. Since January 1, 1904 — that is, during the last four years — exactly 11,635 numbers have been added to our inventory of newly introduced things. At the present time the Department has in China an agricultural explorer who has been there nearly three years. He has covered thousands of miles of territory; has visited the principal places of interest agriculturally in Manchuria, southern Siberia, and northern China; has twice faced death, once among the Chinese and once among the Cossacks, and has sent in over 1,000 shipments of seeds and scions. Among the things secured by Mr. Frank Meyer are a hardy persimmon, which will probably thrive in the New England States; dry land rices, new varieties of soy beans, drought resisting alfalfa, valuable varieties of Chinese pears, peaches, plums, quinces, apricots, cherries, pistaches, grapes, and many new and valuable orna- mental shrubs and trees. Among the things which are being sought for in foreign countries at the present time are the hardy bamboos of the Orient: new varieties of barley; the best cork oaks in order to start the cork oak industry in this country; better varieties of hemp for the Kentucky hemp growers; East Indian mangos for the Florida mango growers, mat- ting plants from different parts of the world to stimulate the pro- duction of a supply for our matting manufacturers; Avet land crops for the south, such as the yautias. and taros of the Orient; wild apples, wild asparagus, wild celery, and other wild plants for the use of the many hundreds who are engaged in the breeding of our cultivated crops and who desire new materials of a wilder character for their breeding experiments. BEET SUGAR. Four months after James Wilson became Secretary of Agriculture. Congress passed a tariff bill, the sugar schedule of which was devised for the express purpose of encouraging the production of sugar from American grown beets. For many years one of Mr. Wilson's hobbies had been that the American farmer was entitled to and should receive the $100,000,000. which we were annually sending abroad for sugar, a product which he was perfectly capable of prodiicing. At that time six strue:gling beet sugar factories were in existence and were paying the farmers between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 an- nually for their beets. The new Secretary secured a special item in his appropriation bill allowing him money for sugar investigations and experiments. Doctor Wiley was as much of a beet sugar enthus- iast as was the Secretary, and the Bureau of Chemistry, the' "Bureau of Plant Industry, the Bureau of Soils, as well as other bureaus immediately took the fever. Different varieties of seed were im- ported from all the seed growing districts of Europe and thoroughly tested for vitality, germination, etc. Bulletins of instructions to farmers were issued, showing how to produce the crop and outlining its advantages. Vast quantities of colored maps were issued showing 74 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. the theoretical thermal belt of the United States in which beets could be grown. Mr. Saylor, one of the Secretary's most valued and astute friends, was induced to travel about the United States from ocean to ocean as well as in Porto Rico, Cuba and Hawaii, gathering information con- cerning the sugar industry and its progress in order that an annual report could be published on this subject. Such a demand grew up for these reports that one year Congress ordered 120,000 copies printed, and from the first year of the Secre- tary's incumbency a fresh report has appeared annually with the regularity of clockwork. And what has been the measure of success? Instead of G beet sugar factories we now have 63. Instead of an investment of a couple of millions in the industry there is now in- vested in it nearly $100,000,000. Instead of the industry being con- fined to three States, it has spread out over sixteen States, running from New York on the east to California on the west and last year the farmers of the United States received over $22,000,000 for their crop of sugar beets. SINGLE GERM SUGAR BEET SEED. There is nothing '' hide bound " about the Department of Agri- culture. Its work" is not confined to working out the preconceived ideas of its head, its chiefs, or its employees, but, on the contrary, practical suggestions are always welcomed. Let me give you an illustration of this. The so-called sugar beet seed is in reality a cluster of seeds confined within a fibrous sub- stance known as a beet ball. The average number of plants which germinate from each ball is 3|-, and in whatever manner these balls may be planted there is a surplusage of beetlets which must be pulled up. This is laborious work, is done on hands and knees, and just at the opportune time. Even with the utmost care much damage is done to the remaining beetlets, which results in a loss of tonnage. I conceived the idea of breeding a beet ball which should contain but one seed, so that the surplus beetlets could be removed with a hoe and without damage to the remaining ones. I suggested the idea to several sugar men and' was laughed at for my pains. I suggested it to the Secretary of Agriculture and he jumped clear out of his chair and exclaimed, " Yes, we can do it, and will do it, and it will mean untold millions for the American sugar beet farmers." To make a long story short, commercial sugar beet seed contains from 1 to 2 per cent of balls carrying but one seed. Two thousand of these single germ balls were selected and planted. Two years ago last fall the first generation came to seed and the best plants showed 26 per cent of the single germ variety. Last fall the second generation grown from the 26 per cent plant was harvested and showed a frac- tion over 50 per cent single germ balls. To-day it is confidently expected that within from four to eight years we will have this single germ characteristic fixed and can then com- mence producing commercial seed of this kind. If we could have used such seed last year it would have meant more than $10,000,000 additional money to the American farmers. When the bulletin which I wrote on the subject for the Department was published the Euro- pean beet sugar papers copied from it extensively and universally THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 75 ridiculed the idea, but thanks to the work of our Department of Agri- culture we will soon distance the scientific beet seed growers of Europe who have been steadily engaged at it for over a century. SUMATRA WRAPPER TOBACCO. A few years ago we were annually importing about $8,000,000 worth of high priced Sumatra wrapper tobacco. Secretary Wilson wondered if it were not possible to turn that money into the pockets of our American farmers rather than to send it to the Orient. He disiDatched a scientist to the island of Sumatra where he re- jnained nearly a year, studying soils, climatic conditions, and cultural methods. He not only brought back seed, but samples of their most productive soils. The next move was to discover whether or not we possessed similar soils, and corps of soil scientists scoured our various States in their search. Like soils were discovered in Connecticut, in Georgia, and in Florida, but of course none of these localities possessed the climate of Sumatra. Ergo — make it. The Department tented over an acre of ground in each of several localities and placed a scientist in charge of each station. Result — instead of as heretofore a small crop of inferior tobacco, worth 9 or 10 cents per^ pound, a large crop of high- grade wrapper was produced which brought from 30 to 60 cents per pound. Then private capital embarked in the industry, and last year 7,200 acres of this superior wrapper tobacco was grown under tents in Florida, Georgia, and Connecticut, and preparations are under way for the investment of several more million dollars in the industry. The tobacco so produced in Georgia and Florida brought an aver- age price of 60 cents per pound and the average returns in those States was $600 Der acre. Last year alone nearly $4,000,000, which otherwise w^ould nave been sent to the Orient for wrapper tobacco, went into the pockets of the tobacco farmers of these three States. From the Connecticut fields, the Bureau of Plant Industry has selected a type of wrapper which has proved to be one of the finest types ever produced, and this is rapidly replacing all other types in Georgia and Florida. It seems to be a question of but a very few years when the remain- ing $4,500,000 we now send abroad for wrappers, will go into tlie pockets of our American farmers instead. CUBAN FILLER TOBACCO. Having solved the wrapper tobacco question, the Secretary set about to solve the problem of diverting to the pockets of the Ameri- can farmer the $14,000,000 we annually send to the Tropics for filler tobacco. He sent his scientists to the most famous tobacco districts of Cuba to study conditions as they had been studied in Sumatra. On their return similar soils were found in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio, and there the Cuban seed was i:)lanted. Last year 6,535 acres were planted to this tobacco in the four States mentioned. The yield was from 550 pounds per acre in Texas to 1.060 pounds in Ohio. The price received by the growers was 76 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. from 11^ cents in Ohio to 24 cents in Texas. The returns per acre ran from $115 in Ohio to $175 in Florida, and the industry is already- yielding our farmers nearly a million dollars a year. By the cour- tesy of the Secretary I have smoked cigars produced from selected Texas grown tobacco which were equal to any 25-cent or three for a dollar Cuban cigar you can buy. It should not be long before the farmers of Ohio and the Gulf coast will be receiving that $14,000,000 which we now send to the West Indies for filler tobacco. MACARONI WHEAT. Early in his work with the Department the Secretary concluded that it Avas folly for this great wheat-producing country to annually import millions of dollars worth of macaroni and vermicelli. To determine the exact character of the wheat used to produce it he had Doctor Wiley analyze several samples, and then he dispatched a scientist to the Mediterranean to study the whole subject and bring back samples of the wheat. There he found the manufacturing end, but not the Avheat fields. European manufacturers are more secretive than are those of America, but a chance remark led him to purchase a ticket for Rus- sia. After an extended search through numerous wheat-growing provinces he landed away up on the arid plains of the Steppes of Russia. Although the annual rainfall of that desolate country was but 10 inches, there he found the wheat fields which were supplying the macaroni factories of the ^Mediterranean. He shipped three car- loads of this wheat to Washington, and subsequently, on the deserts of Algeria, he discovered a similar variety which w^as being used for the same purpose. These samples of drought-resisting and rust -resisting wheat were distributed to farmers in our semiarid regions west of the one hun- dredth meridian where we had heretofore been imable to produce wheat. To the utter astonishment of our farmers, fields of more than 30 bushels to the acre were secured Avith an 8-inch rainfall and the first year's production was used entirely for seed. In" 1902 we raised 200,000 bushels of it. In 1904 we produced 10,000,000 bushels, and last year our crop of durum or macaroni wheat reached the enormous sum of 00,000,000 bushels, thus in a single sea- son pouring an additional stream of $50,000,000 gold into the pockets of our western farmers. As. soon as the production of this cereal outran the home consump- tion, the Department introduced it abroad. While to-day we are both producing and importing macaroni, the foreign demand for this wheat is more than sufficient to use our whole crop if it was desirable to let it go. Not only has the introduction of durum wheat enormously en- riched our farmers by extending the wheat-j)roducing area through- out large portions of the arid West Avhere other varieties will not thrive, but this variety has been found to be particularly resistant to rust and yields good crops where ordinary wheats are completely de- stroyed by this disease. Its use is not confined to the manufacture of macaroni, l)ut it is used to a considerable extent for ordinary bread THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 77 flour and for blending with other flours, having in many respects superior qualities. This unheralded experiment cost but a few thousand dollars and already yields us enough money to add six new battle ships to our Xa^y every j^ear. In one or two decades the cash returns from this single experiment will exceed the total value of our Navy and coast defenses combined. And yet we cheerfully expend over $100,000,000 a year on our Navy making an effort to impress the world with our greatness and warning the nations not to invade our territory, while many good people grumble at the miserly eight millions a year ex- pended on the industry which enables us to strut the seas. Battle ships never yet opened up great foreign markets. The ])eo- ple of the world buy where they can purchase the cheapest. Teaching our farmers how to produce abundantly and cheaply the crops which the world wants and must have is what opens up foreign markets; and if for a decade we were to reverse the order of our appropriations and judiciously expend a hundred millions a year on agriculture and eight millions on the Navy, our power, our greatness, our prosperity, and our happiness would be the marvel of the world. We rightfully boast of our inventive genius and of our marvelous prosperity, but in scientific agriculture, in good roads, and in internal waterways we are far behind most of the great nations of the world. "VVliile neglecting these prolific sources of national wealth we have expended over $500,000,000 to satisfj^ national pride and float our flag in the Orient. Our War Department absorbs $122,000,000 a year and the Navy Department a hundred millions more, while fifty millions is annually absorbed in running the Philippines. With this vast annual expenditure on external affairs and only eight millions for agriculture, is it not time for an awakening as to the far greater importance of increased expenditures on internal affairs where each dollar expended, instead of calling for additional thousands of expenditures, will mean thousands of revenue and wealth. MENACES TO AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. As to actual and active menaces to our agricultural prosperity and development we have but one. With our recently acquired tropical possessions a new and important economic problem has appeared which must soon be settled. We annually import about $400,000,000 worth of agricultural prod- ucts. About one-half of these products, mostly sugar and tobacco, are produced in the temperate zone as well as in the Tropics, and Sec- retary Wilson is teaching the American farmers how to produce them in this western and southern country, as well as in some portions of the Eastern States. The other $200,000,000 worth are produced only in the Tropics, and consist of such articles as coffee, rubber, fibers, cacao, copra, indigo, etc., all of which grow to perfection in our island possessions. That grizzled old statesman. Secretary Wilson, recommends that we teach the people of our island possessions to produce the $200,000,000 worth of tropical products which we can not raise at home, thus helping those people without injury to our own farmers. But not all statesmen are as practical as James Wilson. There is a 78 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. small bevy of self-styled " altruistic statesmen " who, for reasons best known to themselves, ridicule the idea of aiding the people of our island possessions to produce what we are unable to produce at home. They insist that our island people be coaxed to produce our sugar and tobacco, thus robbing the American farmer of two of the most profitable crops which the Secretary of Agriculture has taught them to produce, as well as depriving them of all hope of eventually pro- ducing on American farms the $120,000,000 worth of sugar and tobacco which we still import. It is devoutly to be hoped that the Wilson type of statesmanship will prevail ; that in due course of time we will produce on the main- land every article we are capable of producing, and that we will enrich our insular possessions as well as make us more self-sustaining as a nation, by encouraging our insular population to produce all that we are unable to produce at home. TO ATTAIN MAXIMUM ECONOMIC RESULTS. As directly affecting agriculture, the natural sequence of govern- mental expenditures should be : First, teach the farmers what to pro- duce and how best to produce it. Second, by constructing and main- taining at least one national highway across each State, furnish an object lesson to our people which would result in a universal system of good roads throughout the States, thus affording the farmer the lowest cost of transportation on all his products to the nearest station or warehouse or wharf. Third, a complete system of inland natural waterways and canals, by means of which he would be able to deliver his export crops to tide water at a minimum freight rate. Fourth, deep harbors which would accommodate the merchant marine of the world, and then, if not enough ships are to be had to transport our products to the markets of the world, create a great American mer- chant marine by means of ship subsidies. This, gentlemen, is the logical sequence for economic development, not only in agriculture, but in the main, for our great manufacturing and mining industries as well. O UIDHMn I wi 021 529 517 5 t CONGRESS 021 529 517 5