History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 19

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700

USA > California > Orange County > History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 19

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The large acreage of oranges set out during the last five years will soon increase the orange crop for the county to five and six million boxes annually. In no other section in Southern California have so many orange trees been put ont in recent years as in Orange County.

CHAPTER XXVII BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY

The following description of the beet sugar industry has been largely gleaned from an article on that subject prepared by Truman G. Palmer, secretary of the United States Beet Sugar Industry, in 1913, three years subsequent to the publi- cation of the first volume of this history, and one year prior to the beginning of the recent World War.

The earliest attempt to produce sugar from beets in the United States was made in Philadelphia in 1830 by two Germans named Vanghan and Ronaldson, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Eight years later David Lee Child erected a small factory at Northampton, Mass., and succeeded in producing a small quantity of sugar, for which he was awarded a silver medal which bore the following inscription : "The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Award to David Lee Child, for the first beet sugar made in America. Exhibition of 1839."

Due to lack of technical knowledge in both field and factory, the Northampton plant operated but one season.

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

In 1852 Bishop Tyler, of the Mormon Church, purchased.in France the ma- chinery for a factory, shipped it by water to Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and hauled it by ox team from there to Salt Lake City. This effort was also a failure. Dur- ing the next few years, attempts were made to produce beet sugar in the United States as follows: Illinois, 1863-71; Wisconsin, 1868-71; New Jersey, 1870-76: Maine, 1876; but all these efforts ended in failure, which absorbed some $2,250,000, and ruined most of the men who attempted to establish the industry in America.

The first American to wrest success from failure was E. H. Dyer, who erected a small plant at Alvarado, Cal., in 1879. Although a failure for many years, much of which time the plant was idle, it finally became a success. Several times it has been rebuilt and re-equipped with machinery and while running today, it never will pay interest on more than a fraction of the money invested in it.

In 1883 the Federal Treasury needed money and Congress had become en- thusiastic about the possibility of producing our sugar supply at home, so our national legislature enacted a tariff bill which carried a duty of three and one- half cents a pound on refined sugar and two and one-half cents on raw. But 110 one knew what soil or climate were required for producing high grade beets, nor how to grow them, nor how to operate a factory, and the string of dismal failures reaching from ocean to ocean made capitalists cautious. Even when our Federal Treasury was overflowing in 1890 and sugar was placed on the free list, the bounty of two cents per pound, which was placed on domestic production, failed to attract capital, as did also the Wilson forty per cent ad valorem bill of 1894.

However, when the Dingley bill of 1897 was passed and William Mckinley made James Wilson secretary of agriculture, a new order of affairs was estab- lished. Although the duty fixed on sugar imports was but fifty-two per cent of what it had been under the bill of 1883 and but six factories were in existence. the Department of Agriculture set to work to determine where favorable natural conditions existed, to learn and to teach the farmers cultural methods and to ex- ploit the industry generally. It was deemed wise that a great industry, destined to supply a large portion of the $400,000,000 worth of sugar which we annually consume, should be scattered as widely over the states as possible. To this end ·the Department issued a wall map, on which was traced the theoretical beet sugar area of the United States. This map was changed from time to time to corre- spond with increased knowledge of the adaptability-of the country to this industry. The last statement of the Department concerning this subject shows that we have in the United States 274.000,000 acres, the soil and climate of which are adapted to sugar beet culture. If but a fraction of one per cent of this area were planted to sugar beets, it would furnish all the sugar we consume.

Doctor Wiley and the Bureau of Chemistry and Doctor Galloway and the Bureau of Plant Industry were set to work ; a field agent was placed on the road to investigate conditions throughout the country and experiments were conducted in various states. As a result of the information and the inviting conditions set forth in the numerous bulletins and reports of the Department, in fourteen years, $84,000,000 has been coaxed into the industry, the number of factories has in- creased from six in two states to seventy-six in sixteen states, and the annual output has grown from 40,000 to 700,000 tons, or one-fifth of the total sugar con- sumption of the United States, enough to supply all the people living west of the Mississippi River. As a result of the Newlands bill, great areas of desert land have been reclaimed where sugar beets can be raised more profitably than can any other crop, and upon the expansion of this industry largely depends the success or failure of the great irrigating works which the Federal Government has con- structed at an expense of $80,000,000.

James Wilson knew that the long haul freight charges ate up the profits of the far western farmers on low-priced cereal products when shipped to the East. They cannot successfully compete in the East with the farmers of the great Mississippi Valley who have a much shorter haul to market. But with alfalfa and beet pulp with which to fatten stock, they obtain two crops, sugar and live-

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

stock, on which the freight charges are small in proportion to the value of the product. Sugar beets reach their greatest perfection when grown under irriga- tion and our farmers, especially in the irrigated West, have found the crop to be one of the most profitable, if also the most difficult, which they can grow. Due to rotating other crops with sugar beets one year in four, thousands of farms are producing greater yields of such other crops than ever before.

This industry now distributes $63,000,000 annually to American farmers, to laborers in the sugar factories and to laborers in coal mines and other American industries which furnish it with supplies, all of which money would be sent to foreign countres in payment for imported sugar, but for the establishment of this domestic industry.

Since the industry was established up to 1913, it has distributed $400,000,000 to American toilers, and when fully developed it will distribute $200,000.000 annually to American industry.

During the fourteen years in which the domestic beet sugar industry grew from 40,000 to 700,000 tons, the average wholesale price of sugar declined from $4.97 per 100 pounds to $4.12 per 100 in 1913, or seventeen per cent, despite the fact that during the same period the price of practically all other food commodities has increased from thirty-three and one-third to 100 per cent. When fully developed, this industry will still further reduce not only the price of sugar, but of all other food products through increasing the yield per acre.

The German increase in yield per acre of wheat, rye, barley and oats has been eighty per cent during the past thirty years, as compared with an increase of but six and six-tenths per cent in the United States. German economists are a unit in attributing Germany's increase in yield to the introduction of sugar beet cul- ture which taught their farmers to grow a root crop one year in four in rotation with cereals, and thus out of $?86,000,000 worth of these crops which Germany annually produces, $438,000,000 worth is due to the introduction of sugar beet culture. Even greater results than those obtained in Germany have been secured wherever sugar beet culture has been introduced in this country, and should the further expansion of the industry result in duplicating Germany's experience throughout the United States, our yield of these four crops, at present farm prices, would be worth $2,000,000,000 instead of $1.124,000,000, as at present (1913). In the language of Knauer, one of the foremost agriculturists of Germany: "It is our firm belief that increased beet culture is the greatest blessing for every land."

To secure a heavy tonnage, fields to be planted to sugar beets should be thor- oughly fertilized. Barnyard manure is the best fertilizer, but in Europe it is sup- plemented with large quantities of commercial fertilizers. The beets exhaust only a portion of the fertilizer, leaving the balance, with a mass of fibrous roots, to enrich the soil for the three succeeding crops which should be grown before re- planting the field to beets. To teach the farmers the art of rotation and how best to grow beets and all other crops, each factory employs a scientific agriculturist and a corps of assistants who spend their time with the surrounding farmers. In 1912 the actual cost to the factories for this educational work amounted to thirty- eight cents for each ton of beets sliced, or a total of nearly $2.000.000. So benefi- cial have been the results of this work, that Secretary of Agriculture Wilson de- clared that a beet sugar factory is as valuable to the farmers of a community as is a government agricultural experiment station, which costs the public thousands of dollars to maintain.

Sugar beets require deep plowing. ten to fourteen inches, or twice the usual depth. When using- horses, farmers are inclined not to plow deeply enough to secure maximum results, and some of the factories have put in power plows which turn six furrows and harrow the land at the same time. They plow and harrow the land for $2.50 per acre, which is about one-half of what it costs the farmers to plow equally deep with horses. The traction engines also are used for

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hauling train wagon loads of beets to the factory. In some localities farmers are banding together and purchasing engines for plowing and hauling beets.

Beets are drilled in rows, usually eighteen inches apart, eighteen to twenty- five pounds of seed to each acre. Practically all the beet seed used in America is grown in Europe, but it has been demonstrated that superior seed can be produced in the United States. Sugar beet seed growing requires five years of the utmost skill, care and patience, from the planting of the original seed to the maturing of the commercial crop which is sold to the trade. The factories contract for their seed for three to five years in advance, sell it to farmers at cost price and deduct the amount from the payment for beets.

When the beets are up and show the third leaf they should be thinned. Unless thinned at the proper time, the pulling up of the superfluous beetlets injures the roots of the remaining ones. Scientific experiments in Germany, where all other conditions were identical, showed that one acre, thinned at the proper time, yielded fifteen tons ; the next acre, thinned a week later, yielded thirteen and one-half tons ; the third acre, thinned still a week later, yielded ten and one-half tons; and the fourth acre, thinned three weeks after the first, yielded seven and one-half tons. The rows are blocked with the hoe, leaving a bunch of beets every eight inches. These bunches are thinned by pulling up the superfluous beetlets, leaving one in a place eight inches apart. The ideal factory beet weighs about two pounds and a perfect stand of such beets, one every eight inches, in rows eighteen inches apart, would yield forty-three and one-third tons per acre. The present average yield in the United States is about ten tons per acre, while the hitherto "worn-out soils" of Germany yield fourteen tons per acre, or forty per cent more than is secured from our "virgin soils."

While the beets are growing it is necessary to keep them free from weeds, so that they will get the full benefit of the sun and the strength of the soil. Where the cultivation is done with horse power instead of with the hoe, the rows are generally placed farther apart. After the beets have reached their maturity, they are plowed out and are then topped by hand, which consists in cutting off the top and that portion of the beet that projected above the ground, which was found to contain very little sugar. The tops are fed to stock, for which purpose they are worth three dollars per acre.

In the United States, eight miles is the usual limit for hauling beets to the factory by wagon, while the supply of beets may be drawn from an area with a radius of fifty miles or more. To reduce the labor of unloading, the factories erect receiving stations on the railroads in the beet growing area and pay the same price for beets delivered at these stations as for those delivered at the factory. Tim Carrol of Anaheim invented the method of dumping the beets from the wagon into a chute that conveys them into the car ; a similar method is employed for dumping the beets from the cars into the bins at the factory. In 1912 the freight on the railroads averaged forty-five cents per ton of beets, and the receiv- ing stations with their dumping apparatus cost the factories about $2,000 eacli, many of them having from $40,000 to $50,000 invested in such stations.

As the beets arrive at the factory, they are first weighed and then dumped into bins for storage or floated directly to the beet washers. While being dumped, a fair sample both of the beets and of the loose dirt which the car or wagon con- tains is caught in a basket. These samples, properly tagged, are conveyed to the beet laboratory where they are trimmed, if not properly topped, and the differ- ence in the weight of the samples as received and their weight when trimmed and washed is called the "tare." Whatever percentage this amounts to, is applied to and deducted from the weight of the car or wagon load. A sample of these beets then is tested by the polariscope for its sugar content and its purity ; farmers often are paid a stipulated price per ton for beets of a given sugar content and twenty- five to thirty-three and one-third cents per ton additional for each extra degree of sugar which they contain. The tare rooms and the beet testing laboratories

LOS ALAMITOS SUGAR FACTORY

AN ORANGE COUNTY CHICKEN RANCH

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

are open to any one, and in some localities the farmers' associations employ ex- perts to tare and analyze each sample of beets.

The bins are V-shaped, about three feet wide at the bottom, twenty to thirty feet at the top and twenty to thirty feet high. As beets are needed, beginning at one end of the bin, the loose three-foot planks at the bottom are removed one at a time and, with hooks attached to long poles, the beets are rolled into the flume or cement channel below, in which they are floated into the factory. This is not only to save labor, but to loosen up the dirt which attaches to the beets, thus partially washing them. The water which is used in the flume is warm water pumped to the upper end from the factory.

After being floated in from the bins or sheds, the beets are elevated from the flume to a washer, where they are given an additional washing before being sliced. From the washer they are elevated and dropped into an automatic scale of a capac- ity of 700 to 1,500 pounds. From the scale they pass to the slicers, where, with triangular knives, they are cut into long, slender slices which look something like "shoestring" potatoes. These slices drop through an upright chute and are packed tightly into cylindrical vessels holding from two to six tons each ; the battery con- sists of eight to twelve vessels arranged either in a straight line or in circular form. Warm water is run into these slices, and coaxes out the sugar as it passes from each vessel to the succeeding one. After passing through the entire series of vessels, the water has become rich in sugar, of which it contains from twelve to fifteen per cent, depending upon the richness of the beets. It then is drawn off and is called diffusion juice or raw juice. This is carefully measured into tanks and recorded. As this juice is drawn off, the vessel over which the water started is emptied of the slices from the bottom, the leached slices containing from one-quarter to one-third per cent of sugar. These slices are called pulp, and by conveyors are carried out from the factory and deposited in bins, from which they are fed to stock as wet pulp or are conveyed to dryers where the water is evaporated and the dry pulp is sacked and shipped for stock feed.

Warm, raw juice is drawn into the carbonatation tanks and treated with about ten per cent milk of lime-about like ordinary white-wash. This lime throws out impurities, sterilizes the juice and removes coloring matter. Carbonic acid gas from the lime kiln is forced through the lime juice in the tank, throwing out the excess of lime, converting it into a carbonate of lime or chalk. Tests are taken here by the station operator to show when the process is finished.

From the carbonatation tanks the juice is pumped or forced through filter presses consisting of iron frames so covered with cloth that the juice passes through the cloth as a clear liquid, leaving the lime, and impurities precipitated by it, in the frame, in the form of a cake. This cake, after washing, is dropped from the presses and conveyed out of the factory. It contains from one to two per cent of its weight in sugar, which constitutes one of the large losses of the process. It also contains organic matter, phosphate and potash, besides the carbonate of lime, which makes it an excellent fertilizer, all of which is used in Europe on the farm, but so far is little used in America. The juice passes through the Danek filters by gravity after having been treated with carbonic acid gas a second time.

After a second, and sometimes a third, carbonatation and filtration, the juice is carried to the evaporators, commonly called the "effects," usually four large air-tight vessels furnished with heating tubes running from 2,000 to 7.000 square feet in each vessel. A partial vacuum is maintained in these evaporators which makes the juice boil out at a low temperature, thus preventing discoloration, and to a large degree the destruction of sugar, which would be caused by high tem- perature. There always is, however, some unavoidable loss of sugar in this apparatus. The juice passes along copper pipes from the first vessel to the last. hecoming thicker as it does so. It comes into the first vessel at ten per cent to twelve per cent sugar and is pumped out of the last one so thick that it contains about fifty per cent of sugar.

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

After a careful filtration, the juice that comes from the evaporators and is called thick juice, is pumped to large tanks high up in the building and from there is drawn into vacuum pans: These are large cylindrical vessels from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty-five feet high with conical top and bottom, built air-tight. Around the inner circumference they are furnished with four to six-inch copper coils which have a heating surface of 800 to 2,000 square feet. Exhaust steam is used in the evaporators and live steam in the pans. the juice in both being boiled in a vacuum to prevent discoloration and reduce losses. As the syrup continues to thicken by this evaporation, minute crystals begin to form. When sufficient of these have formed, fresh juice is drawn in and the crystals grow, the operator governing the size of the crystals to suit the trade. If small crystals be desired, a large quantity of juice is admitted at the outset, while if large crystals are desired, a small quantity of juice first is admitted, and, as it boils to crystals, fresh juice gradually is added to the pan and the crystals are built up to the desired size. The operator of this pan, known as the "sugar boiler" is one of the most important men in the factory. The water fur- nished the condensers of these vacuum pans and the evaporator goes to the beet sheds and is used for floating in the beets. It amounts to from 3,000,000 to 8,000,000 gallons every twenty-four hours, according to the size of the factory. and must be very pure.

The mass of crystals with syrup around them and containing about eight per cent to ten per cent of water is let out of the vacuum pan into a large open vessel called a mixer, beneath which are the centrifugal machines. These are vertically suspended brass drums perforated with holes and lined with a fine screen. They are made to revolve about 1,000 times a minute, and the crystal mass of sugar rises up the side like water in a whirling bucket. The centrifugals force the syrup out through the screen holes leaving the white crystals of sugar in a thick layer on the inner surface. These are washed with a spray of pure warm water and then are ready for the dryer.

The damp white crystals from the centrifugal machine are conveyed to hori- zontal revolving drums about twenty-five feet long by five to six feet in diameter. These drums are furnished with paddles on the inside circumference, the paddles picking the sugar up and dropping it in showers as the drum revolves. Warm dry air is drawn through and takes the moisture out of the sugar, which now is ready to be put in bags or barrels for the market.

After the moisture has been thoroughly removed in the granulators or dryers, the sugar drops directly to the sacking room through a chute, at the lower end of which the top of the double bag is attached. The sugar flows directly into the sack, the flow being cut off automatically with each 100 pounds, when an endless belt conveyor passes the upright sack past the sewing machine at the proper speed and the product is sealed ready for storage or shipment.

Five of the seventy-six beet sugar factories, reported by Truman G. Palmer as being in existence in the United States in 1913, are located in Orange County, Cal., and are described by him as follows :

Los Alamitos Sugar Company Los Alamitos, Cal.

Erected 1897

Daily Capacity, 800 Tons of Beets

EQUIPPED WITH AMERICAN MACHINERY

Size of main building, 93 feet 9 inches by 261 feet ; length of all buildings, 2,144 feet : area of beets grown by independent farmers in 1912, 10,432 acres; grown by the factory, 401 acres.

APPROXIMATE DISBURSEMENT SINCE ERECTION OF FACTORY

Beets

$4,321,443.87

Wages and all overhead expense. 1,208,100.99

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

Fuel and all other supplies. 1,314,930.61

Experiments, insurance and other items

290,613.48

$7,235,088.95

Santa Ana Co-operative Sugar Company Dyer, Cal.

Erected 1912

Daily Capacity. 1,200 Tons of Beets EQUIPPED WITH AMERICAN MACHINERY

Size of main building, 66 feet by 266 feet ; length of all buildings, 971 feet ; area of beets grown by 226 independent farmers in 1912, 9,061 acres; grown by the factory, none.

No disbursements up to time of this report.

Erected 1909

Southern California Sugar Company Santa Ana, Cal. Daily Capacity, 600 Tons of Beets EQUIPPED WITH AMERICAN MACHINERY

Size of main building, 67 feet by 265 feet ; length of all buildings, 1,184 feet ; area of beets grown by independent farmers in 1912, 10,000 acres ; grown by the factory, none.

PARTIAL DISBURSEMENT SINCE ERECTION OF FACTORY

Beets $1,224,996.35

Wages and all overhead expense. 307,000.00

Freight on beets, sugar and supplies. 309,900.00

Fuel and all other supplies. 337,369.51

$2,179,265.86

Holly Sugar Company Huntington Beach, Cal.

Erected 1911

Daily Capacity, 1,000 Tons of Beets EQUIPPED WITH AMERICAN MACHINERY

Size of main building, 65 feet by 260 feet ; length of all buildings, 1,100 feet : area of beets grown by 300 independent farmers in 1912, 11,000 acres ; grown by the factory, none.

PARTIAL DISBURSEMENT SINCE ERECTION OF FACTORY

Beets

$1,100,000.00

Wages and all overhead expense.

225,000.00

Freight on beets, sugar and supplies. 300,000.00

Fuel and all other supplies.

230,000.00

$1,855,000.00

Anaheim Sugar Company Anaheim, Cal.

Erected 1910-11

Daily Capacity, 500 Tons of Beets

EQUIPPED WITH AMERICAN MACHINERY

Size of main building, 58 feet by 275 feet ; length of all buildings, 1,155 feet ; area of beets grown by independent farmers in 1912, 10,069 acres ; grown by the factory, none.

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

APPROXIMATE DISBURSEMENT SINCE ERECTION OF FACTORY

Beets $ 653,575.09

Wages and all overhead expense. 201,579.70

Freight on beets, sugar and supplies. 173,600.00

Fuel and all other supplies. .

194,200.00

Experiments, insurance and other items

86,130.00

$1,309,084.79

Only two of the five sugar factories in the county answered any of the ques- tions addressed to them by mail ; and even they neglected to mention the amount and value of their annual production of sugar. Following is a summary of the information received.

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History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 19

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1700

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700