94 SUGAR-BEET SEED 



other plant in the field, but this is not true of the sugar beet. 

 In any commercial sugar-beet field from Michigan to California, 

 without regard to the name of the so-called variety, can be found 

 from 6 to 20 or more distinct types of beets. Their distinction 

 may be based upon shape, texture, habit of growth, color, and 

 other characters of the leaf, as well as upon shape, texture, quality, 

 etc., of the root. In fact, scarcely two beets growing side by side 

 in the same field have closely related external characters of leaf 

 or root, and the quality of the roots varies in both sugar and 

 purity. 



Equally wide variations may be found in the beet-seed fields, 

 especially with reference to habit of growth and yield of seed. 

 It would appear, therefore, that these so-called strains are badly 

 mixed in the process of growth and production or that many 

 strains or varieties are mixed before the seed is sacked. It would 

 seem, however, from the large number of wide variations in 

 the individual beets produced from commercial seed, that the 

 mixed strains or varieties appearing in commercial fields are due 

 more to the method of growth than to artificial mixing. It 

 may be, and probably is, necessary to have mixed strains, tfr 

 crosses, in order to combine in one plant all the desirable qual- 

 ities of weight, sugar, and purity. It would seem, however, 

 that little progress can be made in the development of desirable 

 strains of beets until the present mixed varieties are separated 

 into their component strains and the desirable strains recom- 

 bined in their proper relation. It is no more reasonable to sup- 

 pose that such a mixture of the present types of sugar beets will 

 give the best results in yield and quality of roots than it is to 

 assume that the highest results in live-stock production can be 



