51 



of the season, and it is absolutely necessary to have 

 recourse to the plan in use in Russia, of keeping 

 them in cellars. If the expense of this method is a 

 little high, it also economizes considerably the cost 

 of labor and further insures^that the beets are better 

 kept, as they can be daily watched. I saw, in 1874, 

 at Cobourg, Ontario, a similar system which fully 

 answered the purpose, and the beets that I saw, at 

 the end of March, were in a perfect state of preser 

 vation, which is almost unheard of in France, at 

 such an advanced period. 



9 VALUE OF THE BEET. 



A beet is all the better for being regularly grown, 

 that is to say sown in a proper field, properly pre- 

 pared, and that the season has been favorable to its 

 germination, growth and maturity. 



Beets grown in wet lands, immediately after 

 fresh and too heavy manuring are larger, but they 

 are far from having the same value , as beets grown 

 in drier lands and after a crop of corn has been 

 raised between the manuring and the crop of beets. 

 They contain relatively more water and foreign 

 matter and less sugar. A rainy season also favors 

 vegetation, but only gives very watery beets, rich 

 in foreign substances but poor in sugar. 



Among the foreign matters, contained in beets 

 and which must be considered in the manufacture, 

 are azote substances and alkaline salts of potash and 

 soda which flow with the juice as well as the sugar. 

 Saline substances do not destroy the sugar but pre- 



