CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



It does not answer to sow immediately after the cessation of 

 frosts, as the ground being cold and wet, the seed does not 

 germinate immediately, and the soil becoming hardened by 

 the violence of the rains, does not admit the air to penetrate, 

 so that if the seed do not decay, the beets come up badly. 

 The most favourable period for sowing is that when the earth, 

 although heated by the rays of the sun, still contains sufficient 

 moisture to produce germination and to facilitate the growth 

 of the young plant; the month of April and the early part of 

 May generally unite these advantages. 



Choice of seeds. CHAPTAL says that every good farmer 

 always raises his own seeds. In order to do this, he plants his 

 beet-roots, which it is supposed he selects with great care, 

 choosing the finest and most perfectly formed, in the spring, 

 in a good soil, and gathers the seed in September, as fast as it 

 ripens, selecting only the best, and leaving upon the stalks such 

 as are not thoroughly ripe; each beet-root will furnish from 

 five to ten ounces of seeds. When no care is taken in select- 

 ing the seeds, and they are sown indiscriminately, not only are 

 many of the beets small and ill-grown, but half of the seeds 

 sown do not yield any thing. The seeds should be fresh, not 

 exceeding two years old, and the utmost care should be taken 

 to know that they are of the true kind. 



The seed may be sown in either of the three following 

 methods. 1. In a seed plot. 2. In drills. 3. Broadcast. For 

 field crops, the first and third methods are very objectionable. 

 The true plan is to plant in drills or rows, the land having been 

 previously well prepared; ten to twelve acres may be planted 

 with great regularity in a day, by the use of the drill machine. 

 From three to four pounds of seed are sufficient to plant an 

 acre. 



The drills should be from twenty-four to thirty inches from 

 centre to centre; or so wide at least, as to admit the cultivator 

 or horse-hoe in the intervals, which should be used as soon as 

 the plants are fully above ground. The hand-hoers with the 

 turnip-hoe should then follow, remove all the remaining weeds, 

 and at the same time thin out the plants in the rows, to the 

 distance of eight, ten or twelve inches. When the weeds again 

 make their appearance, the cultivator is to be passed between 

 the rows, cutting up the weeds and loosening the earth. The 

 next process, which completes the summer culture of the beet, 

 is the setting up of the earth around the roots. 



Harvesting and Preserving the Sugar Sect. The roots 

 are generally gathered in September or October, about the 

 time the largest of the leaves begin to assume a yellowish 

 tinge, and certainly before the setting in of frosts. The re- 



