SUGAR PLANTS. 263 



same distance apart as corn. The aim is to have the 

 plants about twice as thick as for corn. It is usual 

 to plant over twice as much seed, because it does 

 not germinate so freely and evenly. If too thick it 

 may be thinned when the crop is hoed. 



As the plants start so slowly it is usually necessary to 

 hoe the crop once or twice during the fore part of its 

 growth, to keep it from being smothered by weeds. 



After it gets started it grows rapidly. The cane 

 should be cut when the seeds are in the hardening 

 dough. For molasses it is usually topped and 

 stripped of leaves by hand. At sugar factories the 

 cane is cut up into pieces an inch or so long with the 

 leaves on and the leaves afterward are removed with 

 a fanning mill. 



The seed has some value as a stock food. To be 

 most economically used the seed should be siloed. 



SUGAR BEET. 



Sugar was first extracted from the beet in a Ger- 

 man laboratory in 1747. It was not, however, 

 until 1795 that sugar was manufactured from 

 them. It was not until thirty years later in 

 France and forty years later in Germany that the 

 manufacture of sugar from beets became an estab- 

 lished industry. It is estimated that during the five 

 years 1885 to 1890 — fifty years later — there were 

 three million tons of sugar manufactured in Europe^, 

 Germany produces considerably more than any otUer 

 country. 



About sixteen tons of beets, containing fifteen per 

 cent of sugar, was the average for Saxony in 1888. 

 About 35,000 beets were grown per acre. Possibly 

 250 pounds of sugar per ton or 4,000 pounds per 



