human
So many things on the place need my attention that the journey you are delighting in seems very long to me,
gpt
Is your farm a large one, Mr. Powers?
human
It is larger than you would want to build a fence around,
gpt
I suppose you have all sorts of cows and pigs and horses on it, and raise every kind of fruit and vegetable that ever was invented,
human
No. We have only enough stock for our own use--nothing fancy. I do not go in for show farming. I raise only one thing on my land, and I'm going to see if you are clever enough to guess what it is.
gpt
Alfalfa!
human
No. How did you happen to think of that?
gpt
Oh, I've read that lots of western farmers raised it.
human
True enough. It wasn't a bad guess, but it was not the right one, said the stranger.
gpt
Now suppose we hear from your chum.
human
Corn.
gpt
Still wrong; but you are getting warmer.
human
Wheat.
gpt
Wheat is not as good a random shot as corn.
human
It must be a vegetable, declared Bob thoughtfully.
gpt
Let me see. Not potatoes?
human
No.
gpt
Of course it couldn't be peas, or beans, or squash, because you said once you had hundreds of acres, and you would never raise any of those things in such large quantities, argued Van.
human
Spinach, tomatoes--
gpt
I have it! cried Bob.
human
You should have guessed it the first thing, Van.
gpt
Why?
human
Can't you think? With your father right in the business you ought to.
gpt
Beets,
human
Beets it is! agreed Mr. Powers.
gpt
So your father is interested in beets too, is he? You don't chance to be the son of Mr. Asa Blake, do you?
human
Yes, sir.
gpt
That is a coincidence, observed Mr. Powers much interested.
human
I sell all my crops to him. I expect then, young man, you know all there is to be known about growing beets.
gpt
On the contrary, I don't know a thing, Van confessed laughing.
human
Dad has never talked to me much about his business. He is too busy to talk to anybody,
gpt
It is usually the doctor's children who never get any medicine, chuckled Mr. Powers.
human
Now, I could do better than that for you. I could tell you considerable about beets if you urged me to.
gpt
I wish you would,
human
There, you see, you urge me at once--you insist upon hearing! What can I do? There is no escape for me but to comply with your request. Of course I was not expecting to be called upon to speak to-day and therefore I must crave the indulgence of the audience if I am but poorly prepared,
gpt
In the first place you must remember that while sugar-cane can only be cultivated in a hot, moist climate, beets grow best in the temperate zone. In the United States there is a belt of beet-sugar land two hundred miles wide that runs irregularly across the country from southern New England to the Pacific coast. Sugar-beets can, of course, be grown elsewhere, but it is in this particular region that they thrive best. If even a small proportion of this area were to be planted with beets we could get enough sugar from them to enable us to ship it to foreign markets instead of yearly importing a large amount of it. The trouble is that we Americans are so rich in land that we waste it and fail to get from it a tenth part of what we might. If you doubt that travel in Europe and see what is done with land on the other side; or, better yet, watch what some Italian in this country will get from a bit of land no bigger than your pocket handkerchief.
human
The great objection our people make to growing beets is that they injure the soil so that nothing else planted afterward will flourish. Now to an extent this is true. Beets do run out the soil if they are raised year after year on the same land. If our farmers were not so slow to get a new idea they would raise beets in rotation as is done in Europe.
gpt
What do you mean by rotation?
human
A rotating crop is one that produces a sequence of different kinds of harvests, explained Mr. Powers.
gpt
By that I mean harvests of entirely varying nature. Abroad they have learned that a hoed crop, when planted annually, destroys the productivity of the earth; therefore foreigners plant beets one year in three or five and cereals, turnips, or something else in between times. Formerly they used to let the land lie fallow a year to rest it, but now they have worked out a scheme by which they get a crop every year. It was Napoleon, that Frenchman of wonderful brain, who first discovered the value of beets for making sugar, and thought out the plan for raising them in rotation with other varieties of crops. He commanded that ninety thousand acres of beets be planted in different parts of France, and he established in connection with this decree a great fund of money from which bonuses were to be paid to persons who built factories to manufacture beet-sugar. He went even further, furnishing free instruction to all who wished to learn the industry. In consequence at the end of a couple of years there were in France over three hundred small sugar factories; little by little this number has increased until now the sugar product of the French nation is enormous.
human
Didn't other countries steal the idea of the rotating crop?
gpt
Not at first. Germany tried to make her farmers believe in the new notion, but failed, answered Mr. Powers.
human
Later, however, as an inducement, the German government helped beet-sugar factories pay such good prices for beets that the farmers became anxious to raise them; at the same time a high duty was placed on imported sugar, and the result was that the German people were forced to manufacture their own. At the present time about one-half of the sugar used by all the world is made in foreign factories. I myself run my beet farm on the rotation principle, and find that the hoed root crops seem to stimulate the others; but I can't convince my neighbors of it.
gpt
Does beet-sugar taste any different from cane?
human
Not a whit; you couldn't tell the difference,
gpt
I suppose sugar-beets are just like those in our gardens,
human
No, they're not; they are, however, not unlike them. They differ in having more juice and in usually being white, replied Mr. Powers.
gpt
The ground has first to be plowed and harrowed, and is afterward laid off in eighteen-inch rows because beets, you know, are planted from seed. When the crop comes up trouble begins, for it has to be thinned until each plant has a good area in which to grow; the beets must also be carefully weeded and the soil round them loosened if they are to thrive.
human
How long is it before they are ready for sugar making?
gpt
Practically five months; it depends somewhat on the season. When they are ripe they are dug up, the tops are removed, and they are floated down small canals where washing machines with revolving brushes remove from them every atom of dirt.
human
And then?
gpt
If they are to be made directly into syrup and do not have to be shipped in bulk they go into slicers which cut them into V-shaped pieces about the length and thickness of a slate pencil, these pieces being called cossettes. The sliced beet-root is next put into warm water tanks in order that the sugar contained in it may be drawn out. Built in a circle, these tanks are connected, and as the beets move from one vat to another more and more sugar is taken from them until they reach the last vat when the beet pulp is of no further use except to be used as fodder for live stock. The juice remains in the tanks, and in color it is--
human
Red!
gpt
No, son, not red. It is black as ink.
human
Black!
gpt
Black as your shoe.
human
But--but I don't see how they--
gpt
They bleach it by injecting fumes of sulphur gas into the tanks; lime is also used to--
human
To clear it after the dirt has come to the top,
gpt
Exactly so, laughed Mr. Powers.
human
I observe you are now at the home plate.
gpt
THESE TANKS ARE CONNECTED
human
We saw it done at the sugar-cane refinery,
gpt
I see, nodded Mr. Powers.
human
Well, the principle of making beet-sugar is the same as cane-sugar. By the use of chemical solutions the juice is cleared until it is perfectly white.