Nitrate of on your land that we in the province of Saxony have now 



Soda for f or ^ most p art obtained, but which is at once lost again 



8 where intensive beet cultivation ceases to be carried on. In 



J 4 our district the common weeds are quite as widely distributed 



as in any other in Germany. 



I now pass from this fundamental requisite of the 

 cultivation of the sugar-beet, the active use of the hoe, to 

 the next, and that is the application of the food-stuffs 

 necessary for the sugar-beet. 



Phosphoric '^ e Phosphoric acid requirements of the 



^ ci( j beets are not greater quantitively than those of 



other farm crops; a heavy crop of it removes 

 from the soil about 29 pounds ', and an average crop from 19 to 

 22 pounds of phosphoric acid to the acre. That is neither 

 more nor less than a crop of rye, barley, oats or potatoes 

 takes up, and the sugar-beet, from this point of view, 

 really requires no heavier fertilizing with phosphoric acid 

 than we are accustomed to give to our other farm crops. 

 But, in the case of the sugar-beet, there is the circumstance 

 that in its first young growth it undoubtedly requires a 

 considerably larger provision of phosphoric acid than other 

 farm crops. We can very easily convince ourselves of this 

 if we heavily dress one-half of a field of beets or even a 

 strip of one, with phosphoric acid and leave the other 

 portion undressed. It will soon make itself evident that 

 the early vegetation of the beets on the portion heavily 

 fertilized with phosphoric acid progresses much more rapidly 

 than on the part not dressed with phosphoric acid. From 

 the outset, the beets grow far more quickly, they can be 

 earlier singled, they shade the soil sooner and more com- 

 pletely, and every experienced grower of the sugar-beet 

 knows that this is of the greatest importance. The earlier 

 I am able to single the beets, the better and safer prospect 

 I have for my crop. Every experienced grower of the 

 sugar-beet knows that, with the exception of fields affected 

 by threadworms and beet sickness, it is in its first youth 

 almost exclusively that the sugar-beet has to fight against 

 its enemies, and that the more rapidly it thrives the quicker 

 it grows out of the reach of those enemies. 



Therefore, gentlemen, we must employ an ample and 

 not too restricted quantity of phosphoric acid for the pro- 

 motion of this first period of growth. And for the hasten- 



