SUGAR-BEET. ^ 199 



Product. — Four Imndred bushels per acre is a fair 

 yield in field-culture, but six and eight hundred is 

 about as common. The writer grew at the rate of 

 1150 bushels to the acre the past year, on a hard clay 

 soil ; and his average field product was about 600 

 bushels on the same soil. He has heard of 3000 

 bushels being produced to the acre on rich loams. 

 Several of my roots the past season weighed 16 

 lbs. each, and 10 lbs. is not unfrequent. Now, ad- 

 mitting this last weight to each root, and that seven 

 rows stood in the width of a rod, which would make 

 them about two feet apart, and the roots one foot 

 apart in the rows, and allowing 60 lbs. to the bush- 

 el, we should have the enormous product of 3080 

 bushels to the acre ; but roots so large are coarse, 

 stringy, and not unfrequently hollow, and have much 

 less saccharine matter in proportion to their bulk 

 than smaller ones. Those of about five lbs. weight 

 are far superior ; and these, standing one foot apart 

 in the rows, with five rows in the width of a rod, 

 making the rows about three feet apart, give the 

 large yield of 1100 bushels per acre, which is quite 

 as great a product as it is desirable to strive for, 

 Bnd is, upon the whole, perhaps the most profitable. 



I see by most writers on beet-cultivation that the 

 l<^ves are considered highly nutritious, and are rec- 

 ommended to be cut and fed to stock. I suspect 

 that these writers had more theory than experience 

 on the subject when they made such recommenda- 

 tions. I have universally found that the leaves badly 

 scoured all kinds of animals, even when taken up 

 from green pasture to feed on them, and, if persisted 

 in, created disease. I have tried all sorts of ways 

 to pevent this efl^ect,by salting the leaves and mix- 

 ing them with other food, but the result was the 

 same. They have a sweetish-bitter, pungent taste, 

 and I found, upon chewing the leaves, that the effect 

 on man was the same as on beast. I know of no 

 better use for them than to be left on the ground to 



