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334 On the Stale of the Manufacture 
dry, and sandy soils are not at all suitable, for the beet comes 
up in such ground quite small and dry: the juice it affords marks 
eleven degrees by the areometer of Baumé, but is by no means 
plentiful. It has happened to me not to be able to extract from _ 
it more than 32 per cent. The juice is very much charged with 
sugar ; but the proportion does not indemnify the manufacturer. 
Neither is stiff argillaceous soil proper for it. The seed comes 
up badly, especially if soon after it is sown a heavy rain happen 
to fall, which heaps up the earth and prevents the access of air: 
in which case the seed rots without germinating. I lost in 1813 — 
ten hectares (equal to twenty French acres) of beet-root by this i 
accident. It is even seldom that in stiff soil the beet acquires 
much size; it is thrust above the surface only because there is ~ 
no longer room for it below. Meadows newly ploughed and t 
alluvial earths manured, and for a long time used, are very pro- — 
per for the culture of this root. A good ground will furnish a H 
hundred thousand of beet per hectare; 1 have even gathered as — 
many as a hundred and twenty from a meadow newly ploughed; 
but the mean product is from forty to fifty thousand. 
The ground intended to receive beet should be prepared by 
two or three very deep ploughings. Three years ago I sowed 
some in ground that was intended to receive corn in the antumn; ; 
‘I prepared it by two good ploughings and a suitable manuring 5 
T sowed towards the end of March, and gathered in the be-— 
ginning of October. I left the leaves upon the ground, sowed 
the corn, and covered it in the ordinary way; in this manner my } 
harvest of beet-root was an intermediate harvest, which did not — 
deprive the estate of a grain of corn. 4 
Three years experience has convinced me that the crop of — 
corn was equally good upon this ground, as upon that which had 
lain fallow during summer; and further, that the thinning, 
weeding, and gathering of the beet-root had cleared the soil of | 
all weeds, and that these corn-fields were less infested with the i 
than any other. It was for some time believed that ground 
newly manured produced beet-root less rich in sugar; and it 
has even been added, that when put into ground manured by 
sheep the root produces only saltpetre. I can safely affirm that: 
these assertions are erroneous, and that the production of salt- 
petre is owing to another cause, which I shall demonstrate in 
the sequel. ¢ 
Four different methods have been successively adopted for 
sowing the seed of the beet; but I prefer that by broad-cast, lik 
corn, and covering it over afterwards by the harrow. This me- 
thod, which is the most simple of any, is the most advantageousy: 
although it requires a much greater quantity of seed than thi 
others: it takes about three kilogrammes per acre, instead of 
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