STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 297 



are at a sufficient distance from the ground so as not to be affected by 

 the radiation of heat, which always destroys some of the leaves in flat 

 cultivation. 



The practice now is to make the hills fifteen centimetres high and 

 eighty centimetres from the top of one to the top of the other. The 

 hills are made flat on top, in order that the beet in its first stages may 

 develop freely, and penetrate the whole depth of the soil. A thorough 

 rolling always precedes sowing. 



Sowing. 



Sowing is done either by machines or by hand. In the first method, 

 an ordinary sowing machine is used, whose wheels have been exchanged 

 for movable ^ory-ed rollers, wdiich round off the edge of the hill, and are 

 capable of being adjusted at the same time so as to correspond to the 

 irregularities in size of the different hills. Sowing by hand is, however, 

 more easy, more economical, and insures a better crop. 



In hand sowing, two or three seeds are planted in holes two or three 

 centimetres deep and fifteen centimetres apart, when the hills are eighty 

 centimetres from each other. They are covered with earth to the depth 

 of two centimetres, which is afterwards lightly pressed, to make the 

 earth solid about them. The tool used in hand sowing is a small fork, 

 with two prongs fifteen centimetres apart, corresponding to the distance 

 of the holes from each other. 



In machine sowing, from twelve to fifteen kilograms of seed is required 

 per hectare, while hand sowing requires only from six to ten kilograms 

 of seed. There is also a marked economy in the amount of labor 

 required in hoeing and digging, as the plants come up more regularly 

 and are more uniform in size. The yield of roots by hill cultivation 

 may be estimated as at least one-fifth greater than that obtained by cul- 

 tivation in drills. A field of ordinary fertility, cultivated and sown as 

 above described, and well manured, will yield fifty tons of beets per 

 hectare, and eighty tons per hectare may be raised if there are no 

 failures, and if each root weighs one kilogram, there being eighty-five 

 thousand plants per hectare. 



Hoeing and Weeding. 



About the first of April, when the roots have attained sufficient size, 

 the first hoeing is done by hand. The earth is gently raised on both sides 

 of the hill, without touching the summit where the beet root is planted. 

 This operation is done with a tool made for this purpose, the effect of it 

 being to scratch the soil lightly, as if with a gardener's rake. 



The tool is formed by two small harrows, about sixty or eighty centi- 

 metres long, connected together. These harrows are provided with 

 teeth three or four centimetres long, and this tool is pushed backward 

 and forward by a handle, with more or less force, according to the 

 nature of the soil. 



The first weeding is done ten or fifteen days after this operation of 

 harrowing, when the plants have acquired sufficient strength, and the 

 first leaves are sufficiently developed. The workmen use a small and 

 light hoe, and must be particular to destroy the weeds without injuring 

 the young and tender plants. About the last of April and the beginning 



38 



