CALIFORNIA FOR BEET SUGAR.

Waikato Argus, Volume II, Issue 136, 20 May 1897, Page 3

CALIFORNIA FOR BEET SUGAR.

TllK following is the portion of the article upon the sugar-beet industry in California, forwarded by Capt. liunciman to the Farmers'Club, which is appli able to this colony :—■

The low prices i carved by the farmers of California for most of the products of the soil for scverai yurs [ a.st, pai ticularly the cereal crop, leads ns to inquire what other crop could be profitably subst'tuted for wheat and barley, which up to this time have been the principil dependence of the California!! finner. As a large portion of the lan is devo'ed to the produc ion ufgrivn is well adapted to sugar-beet culture, the answer seems simple. We send anniiaUy to foreign countries about 1'20,000,000 !01. to purchase, sugar which can be produced in cur own country from a small portion of the laud now unprofitably devoted to <'iain. To produce the above amount of sugar would icquiic übout 2,(00,000 acres of laud and 57,(>00,000d0'. worth of beets Annually, which money would go directly into the hinds of the farmers, and about G2,400,000d-d. to the manufacturers to pay for labour, coal and other material used in extracting the sugar from the beets. To work up these beets would require 120 factories capable of working 100,000 tons of beets in a season, costing (i0,000,000d01. Each of these factories would require about 12,5 men to ope-atc them. All the machinery for these factories can be made in this c untry, superior to that made in Europe, »s is fully proved by that used in the Alvarado and Lehi factories. AH of the machinery used in the construction of the large fac'ory now being built at Los Alamitos is made in till s country. This money should all bo expended among our own industrial classes instead of being sent out of the country to enrich foreign sugar planters and manufacturers.