922 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



labor directly in the fields. The planting of the seed does indeed 

 take place by drills, the plants coming up in continuous rows. 

 But after this first operation, painstaking manual labor is called 

 for. When the young shoots come up, they need first to be 

 blocked, then thinned. " Blocking " means that most of the beets 

 in the rows are cut out by a hoe, only small bunches being left, 

 about ten inches apart. These bunches are then "thinned"; 

 every plant is pulled out by hand except one, the largest and 

 healthiest. " Great care should be exercised in this work, and by 

 careful selection all the inferior plants should be removed. . . . 

 When thinning, it is a good plan to give the ground a thorough 

 hand hoeing." Throughout the growing period the beets must be 

 cultivated, partly with a horse cultivator, partly with the hand 

 hoe. " The cultivator and the hoe should be used alternately 

 until the beets are too large for horse cultivation without injuring 

 them. Hand laborers should continue to go over the beet field, 

 pulling weeds and grass that may have persisted." 



Essentially the same situation appears when harvesting is 

 reached. The beets may be first loosened by a plow and by a 

 lifter ; but each individual beet must be pulled out by hand. 

 Then they are knocked together gently to remove the adhering 

 dirt. Finally, they are "topped"; that is, the neck and leaves 

 are cut off with a large knife. " The removal of the tops of the 

 beets is a tedious process, which in Europe is performed by 

 women and children. . . . Constant supervision is necessary in 

 this work." 



No machinery has been devised that serves to dispense with 

 the large amount of hand labor called for. " Several attempts 

 have been made to construct a mechanical device by which the 

 beets can be topped, thus saving a large expense, and perhaps a 

 successful device of this kind may some day be invented. So far 

 as is known at the present time (1908), however, this process 

 has not been successfully accomplished by machinery, and the 

 topping must still be done by hand." " Inventive ingenuity in 

 Europe and especially in America," said the Special Agent of 

 the Department of Agriculture in 1906, "has been directed to 

 planning a harvester which will do away, as far as possible, with 



