CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 163 



Another advantage that may be claimed for beet-root culture, and 

 one that would have great importance in the United States, is the utili- 

 zation of the land annually left open to fallow, and this would effect a 

 great saving, and be a fruitful annual source of profit to cultivators. In 

 this country, the ground, after previous culture of Indian corn, would 

 be in excellent condition for the beet crop, after having been broken 

 up in the fall, and could, after beets, be planted in the subsequent spring 

 in oats or barley, and these in turn, after application of stable manures, 

 may be followed by wheat. M. Mariage, speaking of the disappearance 

 of fallow in the arrondissement of Valenciennes says : 



It has radically extirpated fallow, which at the beginning of the centary was rep- 

 resented by 11,362 acres ; in 1840 by 9,875, and in 1857 by 103. There does not now 

 remain a trace. 



In the introduction of the culture of the beet and the manufacture of 

 sugar therefrom the enterprise will not have the same advantages in its 

 favor, as to the value of the ultimate product, as the Europeans had at 

 the birth of the industry on the other side of the Atlantic. In the be- 

 ginning of the work their sugar was worth 125 to 128 francs per 100 kilo- 

 grams ($11.36 per cwt.), and it was several years before it fell to 90 to 

 100 francs ; but now that the price has fallen to 53 to 58 francs, the manu- 

 facturers find themselves in the unpleasant predicament of being unable, 

 with the apparatus they have in their works, to extract the sugar from 

 beets of the average production, which are generally of low quality, at 

 a cost sufficiently low to compete with products from external sources. 

 However, in the United States we may have the advantage of the ex- 

 perience gained in the European works, so that, instead of having to 

 begin upon a raw product of low quality and crude methods of culture, 

 fertilizing, and manufacture, we may start with those varieties of seed 

 and those methods of culture and manufacture which have been found 

 by long practice to give the highest return for the capital and labor em- 

 ployed. 



But the greatest obstacle to the ready introduction of this valuable 

 industry into sections before unknown to it, and where all the conditions 

 of soil and climate are favorable to it, will be found in the difficulty of 

 securing at once concerted action on the part of the farmers to produce 

 each year a quantity sufficient to be economically worked for sugar on 

 the one hand, and the capital necessary for the erection and maintenance 

 of the buildings, machinery, and apparatus required for extracting the 

 sugar, on the other hand. A limited number of farmers may be found, 

 in almost every section of the United States in which beets could be 

 grown with good results as to quantitative yield, who would be willing 

 and even anxious to undertake the culture if a regular market could be 

 found for their crops. As we have seen in an earlier portion of this 

 work, the product of at least from 500 to 800 acres is required for eco- 

 nomical and profitable work in the manufacture of sugar from the beet 

 by the usual European methods, and few proprietors could be found east 



