THE SUGAR-BEET. 379 



• 

 has been the production of a beet which contains the largest 

 possible amount of sugar with the smallest possible percentage 

 of foreign substances, whether saline, nitrogenous, or non-nitro- 

 genous organic compounds ; for practice has clearly established, 

 that, for every percentage of foreign admixture, about one 

 and a half per cent of sugar in the juice will be rendered 

 uncrystallizable, and thus converted into a less valuable 

 molasses. 



Judging, therefore, from experience elsewhere, it is but rea- 

 sonable to assume, that the solution of the problem, whether 

 beet-sugar manufacture can succeed with us as a paying 

 enterprise, will prove to depend here, as has been the case 

 in Europe, on the interest which intelligent farmers will 

 take in raising a sugar-beet from which the sugar can be 

 extracted economically. 



The present paper is designed to embod}' the facts which 

 have been worked out in the development of the sugar- 

 beet cultivation and the beet-sugar manufacture abroad, and 

 also to state the results of personal investigations carried 

 on for years to ascertain the extent of our domestic resources 

 for the successful introduction of the beet-sugar industry 

 in our midst. 1 



SOIL FOR THE SUGAR-BEET. 



The best soil for the cultivation of sugar-beets is a mellow, 

 deep, sandy loam, with a- free and permeable subsoil, — a soil 

 called by German farmers a rich, first-class barley soil.* A 

 sandy loam, if deep, and rich in well-decomposed organic 

 matter, is preferable to a clayey soil ; for the latter becomes 

 too compact and hard in a dry season, particularly after 

 heavy showers, and so frequently interferes with the groAvth 

 of the fleshy roots ; and in wet seasons it produces a watery 

 beet inferior in saccharine properties. In case the subsoil is 

 not perfectly free, under-drainage is indispensable. A rocky 

 soil, or a thin surface-soil with gravelly subsoil, or a deep 

 virgin soil with large quantities of half-decayed vegetable 

 matter, is very objectionable ; and stagnant waters cause the 

 premature decay of the roots at their lower extremities. 



Suitable physical properties of the soil are of the first 



1 See Reports viii., ix., x., xi. of the Trustees of the Massachusetts Agri. 

 cultural College, 1871-75. 



