New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 585 



of the entire actual product from a fairly extensive area will 

 give safe figures. 



The yield this year on the Station farm from a two-acre field 

 was at the rate of sixteen and a quarter tons per acre, which 

 quantity, after cutting off the top of the beet in the manner re- 

 quired at the factory, and making due allowance for dirt, was 

 considerably reduced. This field of beets was on some of the best 

 land the Experiment Station farm contains, and was given thor- 

 ough cultivation and the best of care. The sugar content in this 

 crop was very satisfactory. 



It is significant that during the past five years the average pro- 

 duction in Belgium, and also in Germany, has varied from about 

 eleven to approximately thirteen and a half tons per acre. To be 

 sure these are averages, and while averages are not a measure of 

 what the best farmers may do, they are the standards by which, 

 as before stated, the success of a business must be gauged. We 

 should not expect the American farmer to do much better than 

 the European farmer, where this industry has for a long time 

 existed, especially at first. New York farmers, if they enter upon 

 the production of sugar beets, will have oecasion to congratulate 

 themselves, if, for the first two or three years they reach an aver- 

 age of twelve tons of high grade product per acre. This is not 

 necessarily a condemnation of the business. 



We must remember still further that it is necessary for the 

 farmer and the manufacturer to be mutually prosperous, and 

 there certainly are some facts which seem to warrant careful 

 consideration, by the farmer, of the manufacturer's side of the 

 business. 



There is great danger that much of the capital which is likely 

 to be invested in this new enterprise will be inefiSciently directed. 

 The manufacture of beet sugar is something with which eastern 

 business men have had no experience, and no careful study of 

 means and methods will take the place of the knowledge which 

 comes from experience. Disasters to capital which may cause 

 losses to farmers are to be feared. It behooves business men, 

 therefore, to proceed with the erection of beet-sugar factories 



