1 62 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is extracted there is a pulpy residue from which the liquid is pressed 

 out. This pulp is very valuable as food for stock. Some factories have 

 dairies in connection with them. The experiments already made have 

 been very satisfactory. The pulp is probably the cheapest food that 

 can be used considering the amount of nutrition. The leaves are also 

 valuable as food, but probably still more valuable as a fertilizer. Sugar 

 takes nothing from the ground. It is made from the water vapor and 

 carbon dioxide of the air. But the tissue of the beet contains con- 

 siderable potash, magnesia, phosphoric acid and nitrogen, and all these 

 are removed to a greater extent by the leaves than by the roots. If 

 then the leaves are left on the ground or are plowed under, the soil is 

 much less exhausted than if they are taken away. For beet-raising the 

 cultivation of the soil must be very carefully attended to. This culti- 

 vation has a very beneficial effect on other crops grown in rotation with 

 the beet, hence the advantages of beet-growing are indirect as well as 

 direct. 



The cost of raising beets is considerable, but, on the other hand, the 

 returns are large, and the profits may be estimated as on the average 

 twenty dollars an acre. 



