Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1911. SUGAR BEET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10155, 3 February 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1911. SUGAR BEET.

—* ■ In the last session of the New Zealand Parliament, the question of developing the sugar beet indtistry in the Dominion, was discussed; but the opinion of members was that the climatic and other conditions would not permit of the successful cultivation of beet, and its manufacture into sugar. Notwithstanding the opinions of legislators, however, thet'e are not a few in New Zealand who believe that the cultivation of . sugar beet might be undertaken with advantage. The arrival in the Dominion of Mr G. S. Dyer, a Californian expert, who has been engaged by the Victorian Government in connection with a beet sugar venture, wiill (revive interest' in the subject. In an interview with, the Evening Post, Mr Dyer stated that the industry was started at Alverado, California, in 1870, in a small way, and it has now

spread throughout the State. Ideas of sugar beet growers and milieus in France, Germany, and Austria followed along fixed, definite, well-as-certained lines, and, as was learned by a representative of the Post from Mr Dyer himself, it was thought that departure from these lines would never he followed by profitable production of sugar. However, it had now been proved, for one thing, that the beet would grow and could be made to yield a profitable percentage of sugar in country from Canada to Arizona—"a rather long range," Mr Dyer suggested. "The requisite soil?" Well, the roots are grown in Alverado with sucoess in a light silty loam, charged with lime. American farmers have an axiom—'A lime soil, rich coil'; but soil Charged with lime is inexhaustible. The beet will grow even- in alkali soils, but it is not essentia lthat they should he grown in such soils. At> Alverado the rainfall is from 20in to 36in per annum. These facts of soil and rainfall may interest intending growers in New Zealand. Mr Dyer did not think beet sugar need necessarily conflict with cane interests. As a matter of fact, the Spreckles, cane sugar refining people, made a rather shrewd move' in 1903. They saw that it was to their advantage to acquire beet interests, so • they 'bled' the price of sugar until the industry was brought down' to, a low point of. vitality, and then they bought in largely.. Beets..realised..at the rate of 5d01., or, say, £i per ton at the factory. A ton of heets yield an average of 12 per cent, of sugar. That is,. 240 pounds of sugar ready for sale from an American ton of 20001b of beets. There was no waste, Mr Dyer observed. The millpulp is fed to cattle either green, or as a kind of sauer-kraut after it has been stored in a silo. The cattle like it best in the sauer-kraut form. The pulp is used mostly .for fattening and, for dairy cattle. , The I off on vthe ground, belong to thefar- [ mer. They are used for feed.