Cultural Methods 121 



ducing two under-sized and undesirable beets at harvest 

 time. 



Losses from poor thinning. 



The United States Department of Agriculture, 1 as a 

 result of three years' experiments carried on in Utah, 

 showed the importance of having a good stand. The 

 differences in treatment were hardly noticeable by a 

 casual observation, but were easily seen when actual 

 measurements were made. Although the beets were con- 

 siderably larger where the stands were thin, the extra size 

 did not nearly make up for the thin stand ; the correlation 

 between stand and yield was remarkably close. Poor 

 stands were almost entirely due to careless thinning, 

 spacing, hoeing, and cultivation. Leaving the beets in 

 pau-s had a bad effect on the yield. Planting deeper than 

 is customary resulted in more damping-off in the young 

 beets and consequently in a poorer stand. 



The loss in stand before thinning was over 19 per cent, 

 that during thinning over 21 per cent, and the loss be- 

 tween thinning and harvest almost 7 per cent, or a total 

 of 47.55 per cent loss in stand, so that the average showed 

 only one beet to every 16.4 inches. Some farmers who 

 were able to maintain a stand averaged a beet to each 

 ten to twelve inches in the row. These farmers harvested 

 a crop not only larger in proportion to the better stand, 

 but the beets with a thicker stand averaged higher in 

 sugar. When the stand at harvest was 76.8 per cent 

 perfect, the yield was 30.5 tons to the acre ; when it was 



1 Shaw, H. B., Dept. of Agr., Bui. No. 238. 1915. ' 



