To Bob every mile of the western journey was a step into Wonderland; novel sights, novel ideas confronted him on every hand and viewed through the medium of his enthusiasm things that had become threadbare to Van became, as if by magic, suddenly new. The greatness of the country was a marvel of which Bob had never before had any adequate conception. Then there were the cities, alive with varying industries, and teeming with their strangely mixed American population. Above all was the amazing natural beauty of scenery hitherto undreamed of. Hour after hour Bob sat spellbound at the window of the observation-car, never tiring of watching the shifting landscape as it whirled past. His interest and intelligence caught the notice of a gentleman who occupied the section opposite the boys, and soon the three formed one of those pleasant acquaintances so frequently made in traveling.
Mr. Powers (for that was the stranger"s name) was on his way back to his farm in Utah, and very eager was he to reach home.
"So many things on the place need my attention that the journey you are delighting in seems very long to me," he remarked to Bob one morning as they came from the dining-car.
"Is your farm a large one, Mr. Powers?" questioned Bob.
Mr. Powers smiled.
"It is larger than you would want to build a fence around," he returned humorously.
"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," put in Van mischievously.
Mr. Powers shook his head and looked not a little amused.
"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."
"Alfalfa!" cried Bob instantly.
"No. How did you happen to think of that?"
"Oh, I"ve read that lots of western farmers raised it."
"True enough. It wasn"t a bad guess, but it was not the right one,"
said the stranger. "Now suppose we hear from your chum."
"Corn."
"Still wrong; but you are getting warmer."
"Wheat."
"Wheat is not as good a random shot as corn."
"It must be a vegetable," declared Bob thoughtfully. "Let me see.
Not potatoes?"
"No."
"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 quant.i.ties," argued Van. "Spinach, tomatoes--"
"I have it!" cried Bob. "You should have guessed it the first thing, Van."
"Why?"
"Can"t you think? With your father right in the business you ought to."
"Beets," exclaimed Van.
"Beets it is!" agreed Mr. Powers. "So your father is interested in beets too, is he? You don"t chance to be the son of Mr. Asa Blake, do you?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is a coincidence," observed Mr. Powers much interested. "I sell all my crops to him. I expect then, young man, you know all there is to be known about growing beets."
"On the contrary, I don"t know a thing," Van confessed laughing.
"Dad has never talked to me much about his business. He is too busy to talk to anybody," he added a little dubiously.
"It is usually the doctor"s children who never get any medicine,"
chuckled Mr. Powers. "Now, I could do better than that for you. I could tell you considerable about beets if you urged me to."
"I wish you would," answered the boys promptly.
"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," began Mr. Powers with mock gravity.
"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."
Mr. Powers stopped a minute and looked out of the window.
"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."
"What do you mean by rotation?" demanded Bob.
"A rotating crop is one that produces a sequence of different kinds of harvests," explained Mr. Powers. "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."
Fascinated by the story Bob and Van listened attentively.
"Didn"t other countries steal the idea of the rotating crop?"
inquired Van.
"Not at first. Germany tried to make her farmers believe in the new notion, but failed," answered Mr. Powers. "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."
"Does beet-sugar taste any different from cane?" inquired Bob.
"Not a whit; you couldn"t tell the difference," was Mr. Powers"
answer.
"I suppose sugar-beets are just like those in our gardens," ventured Van.
"No, they"re not; they are, however, not unlike them. They differ in having more juice and in usually being white," replied Mr. Powers.
"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."
"How long is it before they are ready for sugar making?" inquired Bob.
"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 ca.n.a.ls where washing machines with revolving brushes remove from them every atom of dirt."