Special crops. 2J7 



nure will not supply all the elements taken from the soil 

 Fieret Brothers, the model farmers of France, where the caUi- 

 vation of the beet has attained its greatest perfection, have 

 cultivated a farm of five hundred and fifty acres for thirteen 

 years, growing oats, rye, hay, beets, and wheat, in rotation. 

 They are sugar manufacturers, and fatten eight hundred head 

 of cattle and three thousand sheep every year. They attribute 

 their success to the immense amount of fodder and manure their 

 ^' pulp" enables them to make, and to the improvement of the 

 soil consequent upon beet culture. Their average crop of oats 

 has increased, in this time, from forty-five and a half bushels to 

 ninety-two and a half bushels, and the straw in proportion. 



The average crop of rye has increased from seventeen to 

 thirty-four and a half bushels, and straw in proportion. Their 

 average crops of wheat, for the time, have been thirty-six and 

 a half bushels, of hay over three tons, and of beets twenty tons. 



They state that the cultivation of beets reduces the cost of 

 cultivating the sacceeding crops enormously. They use lime 

 and manures liberally, plow deep, and cultivate thoroughly 

 the beet crop, and a single light plowing is sufficient to prepare 

 the land for the succeeding grain crop, which is drilled in. 



The Preparation of the Soil, by deep plowing and 

 thorough pulverization, is one of the main elements of sac- 

 cess. The beet requires a deep^ mellow bed, that its long tap 

 root may grow straight and smooth. If the soil is not mel- 

 lowed to a sufficient depth, a part of the beet will grow above 

 ground. This top, which grows above the surface, is not only 

 A^orthless for sugar, but is injurious to the balance, and is cut 

 off before the beets are ground. If the ground selected has 

 been in previous cultivation, manure in the fall, and cover the 

 manure about six inches deep. Follow this with a second plow- 

 ing, as deep as possible, wdth a double Michigan plow ; or, what 

 16 



