152 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



Allowing for proper rotation of crops, about two hundred thou- 

 sand acres would be available each year capable of producing two 

 million five hundred thousand tons of beets and three hundred and 

 fifty thousand tons of sugar. 



In 1917 California has fifteen factories in operation or nearing 

 completion. They are located in counties as given below: 



Alameda 1 San Bernardino 1 



Glenn 1 San Joaquin 2 



Kings 1 Santa Barbara 1 



Monterey 1 Tulare 1 



Orange 5 Ventura 1 



According to Professor R. L. Adams: "Some idea of the rapid 

 development and resultant importance of the beet industry to the 

 state may be gleaned from the fact that in the relatively short 

 period of ten years the acreage has increased from approximately 

 60,000 acres in 1906 to an estimated acreage of over 144,000 in 

 1916. By three-year averages the acreage has risen from an aver- 

 age annual acreage for the years 1907-09 of 64,227 acres to 98,960 

 acres for 1910-12, and to 118,600 acres for 1913-15. Indications 

 point to an increasingly larger area for the near future." * 



Comparative statistics show that the proportion of saccharine 

 is greater in the beets grown here than in any other locality, whether 

 in Europe or America. The plant itself becomes a more active 

 worker and extracts more sugar from California soil and sunshine 

 than it does elsewhere. 



Situations and Soils. Of the fifteen factories cited ten are in 

 the coast valley region south of San Francisco, one in the Sacra- 

 mento valley, four are in the San Joaquin valley and the large area 

 noted as adapted to sugar-beet production is obtained by computa- 

 tion of our valley acreage. For the most economical production of 

 uniformly good beets, fairly level fields are of great advantage. 

 To get the largest profits there must be the use of the most ca- 

 pacious planting, cultivating and harvesting appliances, and all these 

 are best suited to level or gently sloping lands. As most of these 

 lands, except in coast valleys, lie in regions of moderate rainfall 

 there is seldom the need of underdrainage, but the problem is 

 rather one of moisture conservation, and that is in most cases 

 easily accomplished by cultivation, to the extent required by the 

 beet which roots deeply and draws its moisture from a large soil 

 volume. Where it may be necessary to concentrate the rainfall of 

 two seasons for one crop, the method of a constantly stirred sum- 

 mer fallow, which insures a crop of grain in spite of low rainfall, 

 will do the same for a crop of beets, providing the relatively deeper 

 cultivation required by the beet is given. 



Though nearly all fertile soils will grow good sugar beets if 

 well tilled for moisture retention and for root penetration and ex- 



*Circular 165, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of California, Berkeley, on 

 "Fundamentals of Sugar Beet Culture Under California Conditions." 



