CHAPTER IX 

 CULTURAL METHODS 



THE acre-yields of sugar-beets are lower in America than 

 in the European countries, largely because cultural methods 

 here are not so thorough. The higher price of hand labor, 

 together with the availability of land, has made the 

 American farmer less inclined to give to his farming opera- 

 tions the painstaking care necessary for high yields. This 

 condition made him slow to take up beet-raising in the 

 first place, and it makes him remain a little behind the 

 European farmer in the care he gives to the crop. In 

 regions in which sugar-beets have been raised longest, 

 farmers are learning that they are well repaid for the 

 extra work they give to the beet crop. They are finding 

 that for every dollar spent on better culture, they may 

 obtain several dollars in return. The operations deserv- 

 ing most attention in this connection are thinning and 

 cultivation. The practices are suggested in Plate X, and 

 in the test figures. 



THINNING 



(Plate XI) 



Preparation for thinning. 



The first requisite to good thinning is an even stand 

 of beets. If this can be secured from the first seeding, so 



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