42 SUGAR-BEET SEED 



W. Tracey, Sugar Beet Expert of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, said in " Progress of the 

 Beet-Sugar Industry in the United States" in 1902: 



" The beet-sugar industry in now so well established in the 

 United States that it would be poor policy to depend longer on 

 imported seed, there being always a possibility that by failure 

 of the crop, or for reasons political or owing to trade disturbances, 

 the supply of seed may be cut off. Even if this possibility is 

 regarded as remote, it is nevertheless true that American beet- 

 sugar factories will never attain their maximum profit until there 

 is beet seed especially produced to meet American conditions 

 of soil and climate." 



The following year the Secretary of Agriculture 

 sent Mr. Tracey to Europe, where he spent five months 

 on sugar-beet seed farms. The 1904 Year Book of 

 the Department of Agriculture contained an article 

 by Mr. Tracey on the " Disadvantage of Relying 

 upon Foreign-grown Seed." Mr. Tracey said in part: 



" While there are careful and painstaking growers in France 

 and Germany, where the great bulk of the sugar-beet seed used 

 in this country is produced, there are many who are not only 

 careless in their methods but dishonest in their practice in handling 

 sugar-beet seed. They pose as growers and claim to make ex- 

 tensive analyses every year of individual roots, whereas in reality 

 they simply buy seed where they can do so most advantageously, 

 regardless of its quality. A large proportion of the seed used 



