26 SUPPLEMENT. 



preferred. Guano and oil-cake, without any admixture of 

 superphosphate of lime, act similarly to the most objectionable 

 fresh stable manures. Saline compounds, as saltpetre, salt, 

 Stassfurth manure-salt, &c., increase the quantity of beets, yet 

 render them, if applied freely, rich in saline constituents. A 

 mixture of one hundred and thirty pounds of Peruvian guano, 

 and three hundred to four hundred pounds of superphosphate 

 of lime per acre, or Chili saltpetre with superphosphate of 

 lime, or wood ashes, or flour of bone, or well-rotted bones 

 with wood ashes, are considered the best special manures for 

 the production of superior sugar-beet. Green manuring, if 

 applied in time, is highly recommended on account of its eifects 

 on the physical properties of the soil. Judicious selection of 

 crops for rotation is most carefully resorted to in the interest of 

 economy of manure and an undiminished productiveness of the 

 soil. To render an efficient system of rotation possible, but one- 

 fourth of the entire area under cultivation is planted annually 

 with sugar-beets. In case a rotation of five or six years is pos- 

 sible the results are still more satisfactory. In the absence of a 

 large farm, a number of smaller ones may thus successfully 

 support a beet-sugar factory ; and the soundest basis for a sugar- 

 beet establishment consists in making arrangements by which 

 the farmer is to have an interest in the produce of sugar. To 

 engage merely in the cultivation of the sugar-beet for supplying 

 existing factories is, however, considered a paying business, par- 

 ticularly if the farmer secures to himself in part at least the 

 vegeetable refuse, as press-cake, &c., for stock feeding. 



Planting of the Seed and Treatment op the Sdgar-Beet. 

 The seed are planted by hand or by machine ; theoretically 

 from two to three pounds would be necessary for one acre, but 

 in practice from fifteen to seventeen pounds are used. The 

 seeds, after being soaked in water, if planted by hand, are 

 placed usually at a distance of fourteen inches apart ; if sowed 

 by machine (of Garret's patent) they are dropped about eight 

 inches apart in rows about twenty inches apart, which allows 

 one horse with implement to pass between. In the latter case 

 from 28,500 to 30,000 plants could be raised upon one acre. 

 A larger space around each plant favors an excessive enlarge- 

 ment of the roots, a result not at all desirable, for large beets 

 are usually watery. 



