AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 569 



The Sugar-Beet in Virginia and North Carolina. 



Professor Page, of the University of Virginia, reports ex- 

 periments on the growth of the sugar-beet. "The poorest 

 lands, treated with about four hundred pounds of superphos- 

 phate of lime per acre have produced beets richest in sugar, 

 and imported seeds have given beets richer in sugar than the 

 native." The sugar in the crops of 1878 varied from 9.3 to 

 13.6 per cent. 



Dr. Ledoux, director of the experiment station at Chapel 

 Hill, N. C, in a report of 50 pages, summarizes the history 

 of the sugar-beet industry in this country, gives results of 

 experience in Europe, and reports results of a large num- 

 ber of experiments on the growing of the beets, in North 

 Carolina in 1878. Of the samples grown in different parts of 

 the state, five gave from 10.2 to 11=5 per cent. " Of the re- 

 maining sixteen lots, more than three fourths go over 5 per 

 cent. by no means a very bad showing." 



THE DISPOSAL OF THE SEWAGE OF CITIES. 

 Experience in England. 



Dr. Voelcker sums up the results of experience in the dis- 

 posal of sewage in England as follows: 



" 1. In my judgment, the most economical plan to dispose 

 of town-sewage is to carry it, if possible, bodily far enough 

 into the open sea to destroy any chance of its being brought 

 back again by the tide. 



"2. When sewage cannot be taken out into the sea, and 

 land fit for downward intermittent filtration can be acquired, 

 the sewage, partially clarified by subsidence, may be dealt 

 with partly in the w r ay of ordinary irrigation, with a view of 

 realizing a profit in growing Italian rye -grass and other 

 crops, and partly by way of concentrated or downward in- 

 termittent filtration, with a view of getting rid of the excess 

 of sewage for which the sewage farmers cannot find a profit- 

 able use. 



" 3. When such land cannot be procured, recourse should 

 be had to the purification of sewage by chemical precipitat- 

 ing agents. 



"4. Town -sewage, in my opinion, far from being a valu- 



