The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1900. BEET ROOT SUGAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 196, 13 September 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1900. BEET ROOT SUGAR.

It is gratifying to notice that the Right Honorable the Premier still has faith in the possibility of the Beet Root sugar industry being successfully established in New Zealand. In placing machinery for the manufacture of sugar from beets on the free list, Mr. Seddon said he did so to encourage the starting of that industry in the colony. This is tery encouraging, because Mr. Seddon is not in the habit of encouraging the starting of industries not likely to be attended with success. We have always been. amongst those who contend that this is an industry worthy the attention of our dairy farmers. No doubt while prices for dairy produce are high farmers do not see the importance and value of such aid-; to dairying; but if a fall in prices was to take place the results in many cases would be exceedingly serious. The high prices ruling for land must make | the cost of producing a gallon of milk very high, and if the same area of land could be made to produce double the' return the cost would be proportionally decreased. The growing of beets for making will go hand in hand with the dairy industry remarkably well. The rejected roots and the pulp, from the sugar mill, is admirably adopted for feeding milking cows. Indeed, feeding cows on sugar beets has been attended with excellent results wherever the experiment has been tried. It is rather surprising that the Taranaki farmers tllub has not made some effort by experimenting wiih this and other, wbat may be termed secondary products of the dairy farm, to ascertain the possibility of reducing the cost of producing dairy produce so as to minimise as much as possible the effect of a fall in prices in the case of cheese and butter. In this way the Club would prove of real value not only to the individual farmer bat to the whole district. Thp Hawhe's Bay Herald, in referring to the ac ion of the Premier in placing sugar beet machinery on the free list, says" Some time ago it was announced that a wealthy American firm was prepared to .build a fact ry—a vety expensive affair—if the farmers of the Waikato would guarantee to furnish the necessary supply of beets, and a good deal of enthusiasm —in wordswas thown by tho said farmers. But apparently talk has not materialised into sugar bets yet, for we have heard nothing of tin proposal of lite. Yet tha farmers of California, working under almost identically the same conditions as to soil, climate, and cost of labor as prevail in New Zealand, find beet-growing to be a very profitable crop, and in the last few years the .industry has progressed wonderfully. In the United States there are now in operation factories having a daily output of 18,450 tons, and others are in process of erection to deal with 2800 tons mare. In some parts of the States l the Industry is yet in an experimental, ar at least an elementary stage, but so far as California is concerned, the growth of beets and their conversion into a marketable commodity has passed the stage of trial, and proved remunerative both to farmers and i manufacturers. There are in operation at eight different points in that State factories having a daily capacity of 10,200 tons. The capital at command in promoting cultivation of beets is practically unlimited, and the giants of the sugar trade, many of whom reside in Oalifornia, are doing all they can to encourage farmers to abandon old lines of production, and undertake the new one as more profitable and certain. .With this idea, they have invested millions in machinery, have made lib:ral proffers in advance, have even furnished the necessary seed, the result baing that Oalifornia rais9smore sugar beets and turns cut more beetsugar than all the rest of the States combined, Nevertheless, the beet industry interests an area as wide as the country. There are factories in Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Nebraska, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Illinois, Colorado, and Utah. Colorado it building two more, with a joint capacity of 1500 tons; New York, Michigan, and Ohio, each one, but all of them small. Michigan already has nine, but the capacity of the largest is only 600 tons, while the Spreckels Sugar Company at Salinas has a capaci'y of 3000 ; the American Company at Oxward, California, 2000; the California Ketiaing Comj any at Crockett, 1200 tons; and two other concorns, 1000 tons each. In some of these States conditions are very s.ivero, much more so than in any part of New Zealand, though here it is the North Island which seems to possess the most favourable conditions for be=t culture."