4 SUGAR-BEET SEED 



combination of the "Vilmorin Original" and the German 

 " Klein Wanzleben." * 



* All the great plant breeders who have devoted their lives 

 to the amelioration of the beet seem to have contented them- 

 selves with breeding from some variety of the garden beet, of 

 whose early ancestry or origin they know nothing. Ages before, 

 the garden beet was bred up from the wild beet, and the early 

 selections of the wild plant may or may not have been the best 

 from which to breed for sugar-making purposes. It seems strange 

 that, so far as appears, no attempt has been made to breed sugar 

 beets from some of the numberless varieties which grow on the 

 shores of the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. Dr. Townsend, 

 Pathologist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, has made 

 some preliminary experiments in this direction and has secured 

 some remarkable results, securing fairly good-sized, well-shaped 

 beets the first generation, which yielded 14 per cent, of sugar. 



The European breeders labored for several decades before they 

 succeeded in bringing the garden beet up to 14 per cent, sugar, 

 and it is possible that from some of the wild varieties a yield 

 will be obtained which will astonish the world. 



Another surprise may come from seed grown in Alaska, some 

 sections of which have a summer warmth which corresponds 

 with that of Washington, D. C. The vegetables thfcre produced 

 are of a very superior quality. As the leaves of the. beet gather 

 sugar from the atmosphere by the aid of the light^ it seems 

 reasonable to suppose that in a latitude where in the growing 

 season, the light is continuous, the extra quantity of light may ma- 

 terially increase the quantity of sugar which the leaves will gather. 

 Experiments with sugar-beet seed soon will be made in Alaska. 



