A further requisite, absolutely essential in the case of soils Nitrate of 

 where there is stagnant moisture in the sub-soil, is, therefore, Soda for 

 the carrying out of judicious drainage. You must not think, ugar " Beets 

 gentlemen, that the prize has fallen to us, who are in the 9 



center of the beet cultivation, all at once and without exer- 

 tion ; on the contrary, it has required hard and tedious 

 work to enable us to reach the position which we have now 

 attained, and, with us, drainage, wherever necessary and 

 it has been necessary in very many places has long since 

 been carried out, and with most beneficial results, not only 

 to beet growing, but also in the case of other field crops. 



Now, I am unacquainted with the con- ^ . 



ditions in which you are farming here, and I 

 do not know whether drainage is extensively required ; but I 

 cannot divest myself of the impression that your soil is in 

 many places in great need of drainage. Wherever we see 

 water standing in the hollows of the fields, we may be quite 

 sure that there is need for drainage, and that, if the necessary 

 means are at disposal, drainage work should be carried out 

 without delay. It may probably not always be a question 

 of systematic drainage of the entire field, but only of those 

 places where it is absolutely necessary that the water should 

 be carried off. In all probability you will secure good 

 results if you thus effect partial drainage ; but I must lay 

 down, as an indispensable requisite of sugar-beet growing, 

 that, if there be to any great extent stagnant moisture in the 

 sub-soil, thorough drainage must be carried out. 



A further and, indeed', the most important , . c .. 



,. . J r 77 r j r 7 7 - LimC ID Soil 



condition of alt for the successful cultivation D . . 

 f j 7 j r /r a Requisite. 



of the sugar-beet is the -presence of a sufficiency 



of lime in the soil ; without this, the hope of a good and 

 profitable yield of sugar-beets would be difficult of fulfill- 

 ment. But this evil is easily to be remedied ; for, if there 

 be not sufficient lime present in the soil, it can easily be 

 furnished by judicious liming; and even in our district, where 

 the cultivation of the sugar-beet has been very successfully 

 carried on, the requisite store of lime was not always at the 

 outset present in our soils. I am not aware whether your 

 soils here are poor in lime, and therefore need to be supplied 

 with it. But, gentlemen, the question is so important a 

 one, not only for the cultivation of sugar-beets but for the 

 production of farm crops generally, that it should be solved 



