92 CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 



at the same time retaining the hardiness for which the commoner races 

 are well known. To attain this end he had recourse to the method sug- 

 gested by Walkkoff,* who believed that the saccharine richness of beets 

 may be improved by crossing, and who was able by using seeds of Frick- 

 enkouse, and the method referred to, to obtain beets the juice of which 

 marked 18.8 degrees, Balling, and containing lG.o per cent, of sugar, 

 starting with varieties the juice of which showed but 17.8 degrees, Bal- 

 ling, and containing 16.35 per cent, of sugar. In planting, the roots 

 were placed in close contact so that the blossoms touched each other, 

 and the slightest agitation was sufficient to effect the transport of pollen. 



But the results of the experiments and of the practice adopted by 

 Mons. Decombrecque t are rather more striking than those obtained by 

 Walkkoff. He noticed when he began his work at Lens that the Silesian 

 beet grown upon a rather shallow soil, and especially when manured 

 with stable manure containing considerable straw, in the spring (well 

 known to be a bad and injurious practice), was hairy, fusiform, and 

 wanting in weight. At the same time the white beet of the country, 

 with green top, gray flesh, and obtuse form, nourished and developed 

 well, though remaining pyriform in the same field in which the Silesian 

 fared badly. The question was to produce a beet having the hardiness 

 of the one and the richness of the other. He chose from his crop the 

 best formed, richest subjects, of size above the average, well covered in 

 the ground, and then, observing the same care, chose specimens of the 

 country roots, called toupie (about the poorest of all the beets grown), and 

 the beets thus choseu he preserved for seed. In planting he combined 

 them in the proportion of five plants of the Silesian with one of toupie. 

 In collecting the seed he carefully preserved separately that from the 

 Silesian varieties and that from the toupie, and in subsequent sowing 

 used only that from the Silesian. He found that the character of the 

 Silesian beet had changed, and that the beet had the obtuse form. How- 

 ever, after the third year of planting the modified seed, he found that 

 the good qualities of the Silesian had disappeared, and he had only the 

 low-grade beet of the country. His subsequent practice, therefore, was 

 to grow two or more acres of Silesian, and from the crop produced to 

 select those he needed for seed, and these roots he mixed with roots from 

 the ordinary crop in the proportion of 1 to 3, and thus secured continu- 

 ously the hardiness of the one and the richness of the other combined. 



With the indications given by Mons. H. Vilmorin in his description 

 of the leading races of beets grown in France, and the methods described 

 in the preceding pages, it will not be difficult for the prospective grower 

 to determine the varieties that will be best suited to his purposes, or to 

 produce new races through which the results he desires may be obtained, 

 but it will not be out of place here to call attention to the experiments 

 of Mons. Derome at Bavay (Nord) made with seeds obtained from various 



* See La bettravc a sucre, par Champion and Pellet. 

 t La sucrerie indigene, xii, 434. 



