Sugar Bekt Investigations for 1898. 423 



the seed while leaving the rest of the surface loose. Heavy 

 showers soon after planting, followed by sunshine will often cause 

 a crust to form that the 3'oung plants cannot break through. 

 The alert farmer should discover this condition and break up 

 this crust w^th a weeder, or some similar tool, before serious 

 damage has resulted. 



Early tillage. — A serious mistake was made by many growlers 

 by deferring the first working of the soil till the plants had 

 attained considerable size and strength. As soon as the rows can 

 be follow^ed a hand cultivator (or lacking this a hand hoe) should 

 be used to loosen the soil near the plants and check any weeds 

 that may be attempting to gain a foothold. Again, some failed 

 to do the thinning till the plants were too large. Not only were 

 the plants injured by the removal of those taken out, but the 

 labor involved in thinning these overgrowm beets is several times 

 w^hat it would be if the work w^ere done at the right time. 

 Bunch the plants with a narrow hoe when they are from one- 

 half inch to one and a half inches high, and thin them to one in 

 a place w^hen they aretw^o to three inches high. Frequent light 

 tillage is the secret of economically keeping ahead of the weeds, 

 but as a rule beets receiving horse culture made better growth 

 than those receiving hand culture only. The deeper tillage 

 seems to be favorable for best results. 



Distance between rows. — It is not necessar}^ that the rows shall 

 be more than 20 inches apart to allow of thorough horse culture. 

 Still many farmers found difficulty in tilling rows of this width 

 with the equipment and skill at their command. To such it is 

 recommended that the distance between row^s be increased for a 

 season or tw^o till they have acquired more experience and skill 

 with the crop. It is confidently believed that they will return to 

 the closer planting after a few seasons' experience. See p. 441 



Early and late plaiitijig. — The advantage of early or late 

 planting depends very much upon the character of the weather 

 that follows, which of course cannot be foreseen. The past sea- 

 son the late planting gave the best average stands, and as it w^as 

 thought that there w^as plenty of time to make sufiicient growth 

 the late planting w^as looked upon w4th favor. These fields had 

 a very promising appearance during August and September and 



