ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 47 



beet seed Experiment Station in 1890. This station, 

 the sorghum stations in Kansas and the cane-sugar 

 station in Florida were established by the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture at the instance of Dr. Harvey 

 W. Wiley, who was Chief Chemist of the Department 

 from 1883 to 1912. Dr. Wiley's interest in the pro- 

 duction of sugar began while he was studying at Berlin, 

 and for thirty years he not only has been an enthu- 

 siastic champion of the idea of the home production 

 of sugar, but his work and his writings have con- 

 tributed more to the establishment of the present 

 American beet-sugar industry than have those of 

 any other scientist. 



The Schuyler station, as well as all other sugar 

 work of the Department, was under the direction of 

 Dr. Wiley. The work at Schuyler was under the 

 immediate supervision of Dr. Walter Maxwell, Dr. 

 Wiley's assistant. 



The station was not supplied with highly-developed, 

 carefully-grown, expensive " elite" seed, such as is 

 universally used in Europe for breeding sugar-beet 

 seed. The best with which it had to operate was 

 ordinary European commercial seed such as is used 

 for growing factory beets. 



In 1891 and 1892 small quantities of seed were 



