CHAPTER III 

 THE SUGAR-BEET PLANT 



It is through the remarkable organizing capacity of 

 the sugar-beet plant that nature is able to take unusable 

 substances and by combining them properly produce the 

 useful product, sugar. The whole beet-sugar industry 

 rests on giving to this plant the conditions necessary to 

 do its work most effectively; then after it has produced 

 and stored its precious nectar, to extract and prepare it 

 for the use of man. The important agent in the whole 

 process is the plant — the greatest of nature's laboratories. 



BOTANICAL GROUP 



The sugar-beet belongs to the goosefoot family, or 

 Chenopodiaceae. The chief cultivated members of this 

 family are beets and spinach. Many weeds belong to 

 the family, among which are goosefoot, pigweed, lamb's 

 quarter, Russian thistle. 



The species Beta vulgaris includes sugar-beets, mangel 

 wurzels, common garden beets, and leaf-beets. There is 

 a wild form of the same genus (Beta maritima) which 

 grows as a perennial along the coast of southern Europe. 

 The cultivated forms of Beta are thought by some to 

 have originated from "a variety growing wild on the 

 western coast of the Mediterranean and on the Canary 

 Islands, and known as Beta vulgaris L., var. maritima Koch. 



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