25 Ai'KiL, 1017.J German Challenge to British Agriculture. 



207 



In 1876 it was necessary to treat 11.62 tons of beet roots to obtain 

 1 ton of sugar ; at the present time the sugar content of the beets has 

 iinjjroved to such an extent that less than 6 tons of beefs will give a 

 ton of sugar. 



The following table illustrates this point forcibly: — ■ 



Table IV. 

 Showing total weight of sugar produced in Germany, and weight of 

 beet necessary to produce 1 ton of sugar for consecutive quinquennial 

 periods. 



Again we see that the most striking advances, both in total produc- 

 tion of sugar and in the quality of the roots has taken place during the 

 past twenty-five years. 



The progress recently made in the improvement of the sugar content 

 of beets may be illustrated by the graph on page 213. In the early days 

 of the industry, sugar beet contained about 7 per cent, of sugar. The 

 method of selection practised at first was to choose medium-size beets 

 of good shape and immerse them in a solution of brine of a given con- 

 centration and rejecting all beets that floated in this solution. By these 

 methods the sugar content was raised in thirty years from 8.8 to 10.1 

 per cent. From 1868 the polarimeter was used to estimate the sugar 

 content of the beet, and exact chemical control replaced empirical 

 methods of selection. In twenty years the sugar content was raised 

 from 10.1 to 13.7 per cent. Finally, it was discovered that beets varied 

 considerably in their power of transmitting sugar content to their pro- 

 geny, and a system of selecting came into vogue whereby hereditary 

 powers of all high testing "mother plants" were determined before 

 seed from such plants was used. 



This combination of physical selection (for shape and size) chemical 

 selection (for sugar content) and physiological selection (for hereditary 

 power of high-grade plants) enabled the average sugar content of beets 

 to be raised from 13.7 per cent, to 18.5 per cent, in 24 years. 

 As individual sugar beets frequently contain up to 26 per cent, of 

 sugar, it will be seen that the possibilities of further improvement by 

 selection are by no means exhausted. 



It would appear from a consideration of these graphs and tables 

 that the awakening of German agriculture is a feature of the past 

 fifteen to twenty years. It really synchronises with the adoption of a 

 settled economic policy, the systematic organization of agricultural 



