> 



INTRODUCTION Xi 



A few obstinate plants occasionally revert to the former 

 habits of the race, and these are useless for breeding 

 purposes, but with the great mass of them the biennial 

 seeding characteristic has become fixed. That it still 

 has a high regard for its ancestry is evidenced by the 

 fact that if by chance the seed from an annual beet 

 be planted, it produces an enormous proportion of 

 annuals, which are of inferior value even for factory 

 purposes. 



As an annual, it ceased to grow and to gather sugar 

 by the middle of the season and, to feed and nourish its 

 seed stalks and seed, it began to use up the sugar it 

 already had gathered. The result was that when 

 autumn came, the exhausted fibrous roots contained but 

 little sugar; the only valuable portion was the seed. 

 Due to the skill of the plant wizards, it now devotes 

 all its energies the first year to developing a large hand- 

 some root and storing it with sugar, the gathering 

 of which continues to the harvest time, storing sugar 

 even after the root has ceased to grow. 



The well-shaped, high sugar content beets which are 

 destined for breeding purposes the following year, if 

 they measure up to the fixed standards, are known 

 as " mother beets." They are dug in the fall, siloed 

 and examined during the winter and planted the fol- 



