PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 287 



aggerated statements about the produce — some putting it down at forty 

 or fifty tons per acre. He would not deal in such statements at all, but 

 would confine himself to what he conceived to be the minimum that it 

 would be possible to realize. Mr. Baldwin then gave the results of some 

 experiments he had made to asceitain the best position in a rotation of 

 crops wiiich the best crop should occupy. He had grown it after man- 

 gold wurtzel and Swedish turnips, and the result in both cases was un- 

 satisfactory. He grew it on stubble, the preceding crop having been 

 grass, and he found the very best results. On comparing his notes with 

 Mr. Beauchamp's, he found that the best results were always obtained 

 when the crop was grown on soil intermediate between rich and poor, 

 always assuming it to be deeply and skilfully tilled. The opinion of the 

 best growers of sugar beet on the Continent was that the wheat crop was 

 the best to precede it. His own experience showed that a very large re- 

 turn might be expected after lea oats. He had no doubt, also, that if it 

 was grown after wheat, preceded by potatoes, a capital crop would be the 

 result. The crop should be put in about the beginning and not later than 

 the middle of April; and the drills could hardly be made close enough; 

 for, if the plants were large, the percentage of ervstallizable sugar would 

 be small. The roots ought to be about 2^ lb. or 3 lb. each. If the beet 

 crop was put in after lea oats or lea vvlieat, it woidd be necessary to use a 

 ni0(h;rate dressing of farmyard manure — 10 to 12 tons per acre of well- 

 rotted dung would be enough. In the experiments he made, when he 

 used as much as 25 tons, the crop was heavy, but the proportion of crvs- 

 tallizahle su<i;ar was small. Mr! Baldwin recommended every cultivator 

 to procure seed from seedsmen of undoubted character, or to grow his own 

 seed, and to select those plants which produced the greatest quantity of 

 sugar; thus he would increase the sugar-producing qualities of the plants 

 — an increase which he thought might be indefinitely extended. As to 

 the harvesting, be had no experience of the proper mode of storing the 

 beet for manufacturing purposes. On the Continent, they began to store 

 it when the leaf began to turn yellow, and it was put into sunken pits. 

 Mr. Baldwin stored it precisely the same as mangold wurtzel. In connec- 

 tion with this, he had to nieiuion that the sanqde analysed by Mr. Beau- 

 champ, and which induced him to say it was splendid, was sent immedi- 

 ately after the roots were lifted. Later in tlie season, a sample of the 

 same crop was analysed by Di". Voelcker, and he reported that it only 

 contained between 7 and 8 per cent, of crystallizable sugar; and later 

 again another sample of the same crop was examined, but only 5 per cent, 

 could be found in it. These were sanqjies of the very same crop which were 

 analysed by Mr. Beauchamp immediately after being pulled, and found to 

 contain 12 per cent. This clearly proves the necessity of attending to 

 proper storage. Mr. Baldwin dwelt on the advantage of the beet-root as 

 belonging to a family of crops, which, by promoting tillage, liljerated 

 plant food and prepared the ground for other crops. Tiie cultivation of 

 beet-root would cause more land to be l)roughl under tillage, and thus 

 give more employment to the agricultural popidation, besides furnishing 

 a new source of industry. In Ireland a state of things existed unparal- 

 leled in Eiu'ope. Half the land was in pasture, one-fourth in waste and 

 water, and only one-fourth in tillage. 



