508 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



farmers and at no expense whatever. In fact, it does it for him and pays 

 for the privilege of doing it, inasmuch as without considering this ad- 

 vantage, the beets themselves yield the farmer the greatest profit of any 

 crop he can raise. Besides this, sugar is carbon, hydrogen and oxygen 

 drawn wholly from the atmosphere being merely the sunlight, the rain 

 and the wind which sweep over the fields. The farmer who turns back 

 all the "byproducts loses nothing from his soil while with wheat every 

 thirty bushels carries away sixty-two pounds of nitrogen, twenty pounds 

 of phosphoric acid and twenty-six pounds of potash, fertilizing elements 

 which today are worth $9.28 in the markets of the world. 



Why are beets the safest crop raised? Because the frost in the spring 

 does not injure the little plants. No frost in the fall can injure the crop, the 

 wind does not blow down the beets. They are harvested and delivered in 

 October, when the weather is fine and the roads are good. The beets do 

 not spoil in the cribs. The farmer does not have to shovel them over to 

 keep them from spoiling. The snow does not cover up the beets; if it 

 does they are harvested and put in piles and covered up and can be 

 hauled on sleighs. There is no chance to lose money on beets, if you have 

 good land and are a hustler, as the beets are a crop that need to be hust- 

 led from start to finish. If you ever see a poor "beet crop in Franklin 

 county, you will see other crops an entire failure. Let me tell you what 

 the Iowa Sugar Company agree, to do in 1910. They will furnish the 

 seed at ten cents per pound (15 lbs. per acre), seed to be paid for when 

 you send your beets to them in the fall. They will furnish you a seeder 

 to plant your beets a plow to lift them in the fall, free of charge. All the 

 machinery the farmer has to buy is a cultivator, if you are not already 

 supplied. They will pay at every station $5 per ton f. o. b. cars. The com- 

 pany pays all freight from every station. Where fifteen acres or more 

 are contracted they will furnish families to do all the hand labor at $16 

 per acre, the farmers to furnish dwelling place for family. The beets will 

 be taken care of by the company as fast as delivered. There will be no 

 waiting for cars next year. The company agree to install beet dumps at 

 any station where five hundred acres or more, are contracted for. The 

 company has several stations where five hundred acres have been pledged 

 for next year. At these stations the farmers are more than pleased with 

 the beet crop this year and not one word has been said against the treat- 

 ment by the sugar company. At Clear Lake there were one hundred and 

 ten acres, with an average of ten ton per acre, and at Hampton there 

 were one hundred and six acres, with an average of nine and one-half ton 

 per acre. No farmer will grow less than ten ton of beets per acre, if he 

 has good ground and does his work as it should be done. This means 

 fifty dollars per acre, and your expenses for seed and hand labor are sev- 

 enteen dollars and fifty cents. This leaves you thirty-two dollars and fifty 

 cents for fitting land, seeding, cultivating, lifting and hauling beets to the 

 station. A man can plant seven or eight acres in ten hours with our 

 seeder. He can cultivate five to six acres a day. He can lift three acres 

 a day. Teams this year hauled from two to three tons to the load, three 

 and a half miles, making two and three trips each day. The same teams 

 made three trips each day, two miles. Each man shoveled his beets on in 



