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campaign just ended. Practically all this latter amount is spent with Fort Collins' merchants and a large per cent of the $800,000 is spent in the city of Fort Collins; hence the merchant is very interested in this important crop.

Speaking, then, for the business interests of the town and the community around it, I can say with considerable pride that the beetsugar industry has been and is now a valuable adjunct to the development of our community, both urban and suburban, and any tariff legislation that may result in the reduction of the price which the farmer receives for his beets or that may lead to the destruction of the industry and the closing down of the factory will be deplored by our people. I am of the opinion that its destruction will rob our State of one of its most valuable assets, an asset the value of which can not yet be measured fully as the industry is but in its infancy. The same may be said of it in relation to the nation, for in my belief the time is not far distant when the beet-sugar industry of the United States should supply enough beet sugar to meet the requirements of the entire consumption of our people.

The CHAIRMAN. Your five minutes is up.

TESTIMONY OF S. K. WARRICK.

The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I realize that you have had a busy day, and so I will try to confine myself to the five minutes. I know you are tired. I come here as a representative of the farming and business interests of Scotts Bluff, Nebr. Scotts Bluff is located in the irrigated territory watered by the Pathfinder Dam, located in Wyoming. We are located in the border county next to Wyoming, and have about 250,000 acres of irrigated land. Scotts Bluff is the center of this body of land.

In 1909 the Great Western Sugar Beet Co. located a sugar factory at Scotts Bluff, known as Scotts Bluff Sugar Co. In 1910 we had an acreage of 6,812 acres, producing 50,250 tons of beets, or an average of about 8 tons per acre. In 1911 we had approximately 10,000 acres of beets, producing 114,700 tons of beets, or approximately 11 tons per acre, and in 1912 we had an acreage of 15,500 acres, producing 171,200 tons of beets, or a little more than 11 tons per acre. In 1910 the price paid by the factory was $5 per ton. In 1911 they voluntarily raised the price to $5.25 per ton. In 1912 they raised the price to $5.50 per ton, on an offer that if the farmers would raise so many tons of beets, thereby giving them a longer campaign and a greater tonnage, they would increase the price.

The value of these beets in 1910 was approximately $251,000; in 1911, $600,000, and in 1912, $941,600.

This $941,600, or approximately that, was produced from 15,500 acres of land. You had between 50,000 and 60,000 acres of land under cultivation under your reclamation project watered by the Pathfinder Dam, producing a total value of approximately $550,000 from an acreage of between 50,000 and 60,000 acres, or an average of $10 and twenty-odd cents per acre in general farming.

PARAGRAPHS 216-219-BEET SUGAR.

From this acreage of 15,500 acres we get a revenue of approximately $60 per acre, or a total of $941,600, which will give you some idea of the possibilities of sugar-beet culture.

The deposits in the banks of our valley in 1909 were $962,082. On November 26, 1912, the date of the last official call of both State and national banks, the deposits were $1,919,692, a gain of $947,610, or approximately 100 per cent in three years for the whole valley. In 1909 the bank deposits of Scotts Bluff proper were $173,921.21. On November 26, 1912, the deposits of Scotts Bluff were $557,623.48, a gain of $383,694.27. A large part of this gain was due directly to sugar-beet culture and the increased values of the community resulting from this, and the increased production of the soil. It came largely from the benefits of sugar-beet culture.

The CHAIRMAN. Your time is up.

TESTIMONY OF MR. EARLY, OF THE LOVELAND (COLO.) CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Mr. EARLY. Mr. Chairman, I am sent here as a farmer from the Loveland Chamber of Commerce. I am a farmer and always have been a farmer. I am interested in this beet culture. It has been one of my principal crops. I find that the beet business has not been as flowery as some people represent it.

I wish to give you the cost of raising an acre of beets, which I have not heard here to-day. It is as follows: Plowing, $2.75; harrowing and rolling, $1; other work, $0.50 (that other work includes possible rolling and harrowing in case of crust); planting, $0.50; cultivating, $2; irrigation, $1; cost of water, $1.75; contract work, $20; cost of delivery, $10.12, which is based on a basis of 13 tons per acre, which was our average this year, and other working expenses, such as grease and oil, other wear and tear; cost of seed, $2; and depreciation, $1, which makes a total of $43.62.

The average of the northern district this year, according to the factory figures, as I have them, has been 13 tons, and the average price they paid was $5.875, which makes $79.30. If I am a pretty good figurer, that is right.

Mr. HAMMOND. What do you include in depreciation?

Mr. EARLY. You have to replace your horses and your tools. Every so often you wear your tools out and your horses have to be replaced.

Mr. HAMMOND. You do not include any fertilization of the land? Mr. EARLY. No; we use alfalfa to keep our land in shape.

This industry, gentlemen, has been the greatest distributor of wealth we have ever had in northern Colorado. It goes into the hands of more people, into the hands of the working class, to the farmer. We have not made on an average since the sugar beet was started in Colorado a profit very much above the cost of the production of sugar beets. Yet at the same time it has distributed this wealth. Everybody has found employment. It has improved our methods of farming, which I consider the greatest advantage in the sugar-beet business. And I believe, Mr. Chairman, that if you seriously disturb this tariff-if you lower it too much-that it will dis

PARAGRAPHS 216-219-BEET SUGAR.

turb our industry. That is the sentiment of the farmers of northern Colorado.

The CHAIRMAN. You have just elected two Senators from Colorado, have you not, who are pledged to vote for free sugar?

Mr. EARLY. That is what I understand.

The CHAIRMAN. Evidently the people of your State do not look at it like you do.

Mr. EARLY. But not in our sugar localities.

Mr. MCHUGH. I do not think that is hardly correct. If Senator Shafroth votes for free sugar he will be doing something contrary to his promise made heretofore.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand they stumped the State on it. I am informed of that fact.

Mr. EARLY. I do not believe there is a single farmer in northern Colorado that raises beets who is in favor of a serious reduction in this tariff, at least not that I have ever heard talk.

Mr. KITCHIN. You are dependent for your price solely upon the will of the beet-sugar refiner, are you not-for the price of your beets? Mr. EARLY. They make the price, yes.

Mr. KITCHIN. They absolutely fix that?

Mr. EARLY. They fix the price.

Mr. KITCHIN. You have nothing to do with that, and do you know whether they have divided up this tariff with you?

Mr. EARLY. I do not know about that. It is not a question with me as a farmer. The question with me is whether these men will pay me enough money so that I can make a profit raising beets. That is the question with me. That is the sole question with me.

Mr. FORDNEY. You will not raise them unless they do fix the price high enough for you?

Mr. EARLY. I will not raise these beets unless they pay me enough so I can afford to raise them.

Mr. FORDNEY. Do you make a contract before you put in your beets with the company, and is the price determined in that contract? Mr. EARLY. We make that by the year.

Mr. KITCHIN. At what time of the year do you make that contract? Mr. EARLY. That contract is made along in January or February. Mr. KITCHIN. You have already made that contract?

Mr. EARLY. That contract has not been made on account of this tariff agitation.

Mr. KITCHIN. They are waiting on this tariff agitation, and they tell you farmers that if this tariff is materially reduced they will have to give you a dollar or two less for your beets, do they not? Mr. EARLY. I have not heard them say that.

Mr. KITCHIN. They have tried to scare you with that?

Mr. EARLY. They have not scared me a minute. I know, gentlemen, that if this tariff is reduced, it comes off the farmer ultimately. The farmer will have to pay, and he has to pay for everything.

Mr. FORDNEY. You do not have to get that information from the factory people, do you? You know it yourself, do you not? Mr. EARLY. Yes.

Mr. KITCHIN. The beet-sugar refiners are going to make the farmers take all the loss which they say will come if the tariff is

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changed, rather than themselves or the laboring men, as manufacturers usually urge before us.

Mr. EARLY. If the tariff is taken off they expect a very great decline in the industry. I think they will take it off the farmers. The farmers can not afford to raise the beets if that is done.

Mr. KITCHIN. And not take it off the laboring men?

Mr. EARLY. No.

TESTIMONY OF C. H. ALLEN, OF PAULDING, OHIO.

The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.

Mr. ALLEN. It seems to me that at the hearings before the Hardwick committee and before the Senate Finance Committee enough things have been said about the sugar business. I do not see how it is possible to say any more than was stated at that time, but there are one or two little points that were made at that time that I would like to clear up. Mr. Hardwick, in his examination of one of the witnesses, asked how long it would be before the beet-sugar factories would be able to supply the people of the United States with the sugar they used? I do not believe that Mr. Hardwick would have asked that question if he had understood the conditions that confront the industry in this country. A sugar factory is different from any other kind of a factory. A wagon factory, for instance, takes a quantity of lumber, a lot of steel, and by means of suitable machinery and the labor of a few men fashions and manufactures a machine composed of those different materials. It is an entirely new product. It is a manufactured product. This a sugar factory does not do. The word factory is used here in an entirely wrong sense and is misleading. There is not one of the factories owned and operated by the companies who made their statements before the Senate committee or the Hardwick committee that ever made one ounce of sugar. It is manifestly impossible to do it. They are simply extractors of sugar, and they can not extract one ounce more of sugar from the beet than what has been put in that beet during the summer, and this is controlled to a great extent by the farmer who raises it. It is the farmer who is the manufacturer of sugar, not the man who extracts the sugar from the beet. It is to them that we must look for the answer to Mr. Hardwick's question.

Mr. KITCHIN. Are you a sugar farmer?

Mr. ALLEN. Yes, sir. This being the case, the whole sugar question resolves itself into an agricultural question, where it ought to be and where it is in every nation of Europe whose soil is suitable for raising this important crop.

Mr. KITCHIN. You know there is a great difference in farmers. Do you cultivate the soil?

Mr. ALLEN. I cultivate the soil. I own 600 acres, and I have raised 100 acres at a time of sugar beets. I raise other things besides. Now, I do not mean to say that I get right down and hoe the ground, and

I am not a horse.

Mr. KITCHIN. Have you any interest in a sugar factory?

Mr. ALLEN. Not one cent, and neither has my family or any of my relatives that I know of.

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The farmer is the manufacturer, and to get more sugar he is the person who must learn how to do it. In the minds of some people it looks like a very simple thing to build a factory and have the farmer raise the beets and thus build up an entire new business, but when you come to the actual experience you find an entirely different condition confronts you from what you expected. Men are not so willing to change their method of doing business nor are farmers very willing to change their crops. It does not make any difference what profits they may make out of the new crop. Then, one year of bad crop conditions will completely destroy the confidence of the farmer in the value of his new undertaking and he will absolutely refuse to touch it again; but all these are as nothing compared to the inability of the farmer to realize that it is his incompetency that keeps the sugar in the beet to such a low percentage. They must be taught how to change this, and to anyone that has attempted to "teach old dogs new tricks" you will understand what a task it is, yet it is the only way to do to develop the beet-sugar business to such a point that we can meet the competition of the Tropics. This is where we need the tariff. I do not think anyone would object to our having the magnificent sugar business of Germany if we could bodily transfer it to this country. The great profits it brings to German labor, German capital, and the immense benefits it has brought to German agriculture and to the consumers of food products of every kind has been a wonder to all Americans who have made any investigation of the subject, and yet we know it could never have been brought to its present proportions if it had not been for a tariff that protected the German farmer from the cheap-grown sugar of the Tropics. They had to be protected until they had learned to grow enough sugar in the beet to meet this competition. This is all the sugar factories and the farmers ask. Nothing more than this, but they ask nothing less.

Mr. KITCHIN. How far can you ship these beets without injuring them?

Mr. ALLEN. I can not tell you that, sir; it depends a great deal upon the weather. Last year we could not ship them any distance in our section of the country.

Mr. KITCHIN. How far would you say?

Mr. ALLEN. Well, 50 miles or a little more. They could ship them on the railroad a longer distance than that.

Mr. KITCHIN. They can not ship them from one State to another? Mr. ALLEN. Oh, yes. I know of beets that are shipped from Indiana clear to Michigan.

Mr. KITCHIN. There is no way for a foreigner to ship a lot of beets over here?

Mr. ALLEN. Only from Canada. They could not ship them from Europe.

Mr. KITCHIN. Canada grows sugar beets?

Mr. ALLEN. Yes; right across from Detroit.

In the examination of Mr. Lowery before the Senate committee Senator Lodge asked him what would become of the beet-sugar factories if the free-trade sugar bill should pass. His answer, in substance, was (I do not quote literally) that only those favorably