In 1872 the state of New Jersey passed a law providing that all capital and property employed in the raising of sugar beets should be free from taxation for ten years. New ventures were undertaken in California, Delaware and Maine, and these states stimulated the industry by bounties, or tax exemption, or both. A factory was built at Hartford, Maryland, in 1879, but it was afterward abandoned, and the only going concerns engaged in the manufacture of beet sugar east of the Alleghanies during recent years were the small plants in New York at Rome and Lyons. Dismantled in 1905 and 1911, respectively, part of the machinery of the former was moved to Visalia, California, and the latter plant in its entirety to Anaheim, California. All of these failures were traceable to the lack of practical knowledge of beet culture and the making of sugar from beet-roots. Then, too, the agricultural lands at first selected were unsuited to the purpose and the seed used up to the year 1890 gave beets of a low sugar content, from 6 per cent to 8 per cent. The development of the Western states gave the beet-sugar industry a permanent place in California, and a little later in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. [Illustration: BUILDING IN SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, IN WHICH THE FIRST BEET-SUGAR MACHINERY BROUGHT TO THE WEST WAS INSTALLED] [Illustration: E. H. DYER. THE FATHER OF BEET SUGAR IN AMERICA] The California Beet Sugar Manufacturing company was organized by E. H. Dyer and C. S. Hutchinson in 1869 with $250,000 capital and a factory was erected at Alvarado on Mr. Dyer’s ranch. Otto and Bonesteel were induced to leave Fond-du-lac, Wisconsin, and come west to assume the management. Operations were begun in 1870 and on November 17th of that year the first beet sugar was made in California. The factory and equipment cost $125,000; the daily capacity was fifty tons of beets and one hundred and twenty-five men were employed. Between one thousand and fifteen hundred acres were planted in beets, the factory paying $3.50 per ton for them. The finished product cost about ten cents a pound, while the market price ranged from twelve to fifteen cents a pound. The first year’s output was 250 tons, the second 400 tons, the third 562 tons and the fourth 750 tons. Then financial troubles came and the plant was closed. The machinery was sold to a new concern, which built a factory at Soquel, Santa Cruz county. This enterprise failed in 1876, but the plant was put in operation again in 1880, when 150 tons of sugar were produced. That was the end of the Soquel venture.