96 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



purpose will not give roots of satisfactory form on an unfavorable and poorly pre- 

 pared soil. It is senseless to blame the seed for faults in the soil. 



IRRIGATION. 



Utah has solved the problem of growing beets by irrigation. Her experience 

 teaches many practical lessons that are being heeded in drouthy or irrigation 

 regions. Too much water, applied too often or at the wrong times, is bad for tonnage 

 and quality. Great damage is done to many fields of beets by inexperienced farmers 

 flooding the land and allowing the water to stand about the small plants, then 

 neglecting to cultivate until the soil has baked. Even in Utah, it is still recognized 

 that the management of irrigation to produce the best results is a delicate matter, 

 and not yet fully understood. Untimely irrigation may utterly destroy the value of 

 the roots for sugar making, and the necessity of varying the application of water 

 according to the nature of the land, in order to secure good results, implies the exer- 

 cise of much judgment and experience in the matter. But with due regard to all 

 these alleged disadvantages of irrigation, it is the universal judgment of Utah beet 

 growers, after six years' experience, that they are far outweighed by the benefits of 

 irrigation. The production is more certain, and the harvest more safely assured, 

 than where the caprice of heavy rains or excessive drouth has to be contended with. 

 The results are always more certain where irrigation is necessary and this is the 

 greatest stimulant to proper methods in applying water. 



Mr George Austin, field manager of the Utah Sugar company, has had more 

 experience than any other man in growing beets by irrigation. Mr Austin says : 

 ">After the thinning is done we run a cultivator drawn by a horse through the rows, 

 but great care must be taken not to cultivate too deep or hill up the young plants, as 

 they require all the air and sunlight that it is possible for them to have. After the 

 first cultivation we generally hoe them the second time to clean out all the weeds in 

 the rows and remove any surplus beets that may have been overlooked at the time of 

 thinning. By this time the beets should be far enough advanced to commence pre- 

 paring for irrigation. This we do by using the same cultivator, attaching a small 

 6-inch furrower on the rear end, and we cultivate every other row, leaving a nice 

 little ditch of sufficient size to carry the water without flooding the beets. The sec- 

 ond watering we alternate the rows this method usually gives enough moisture each 

 watering, but this kind of irrigation, however, depends entirely on the slope and 

 condition of the lund. If the land has much of a slope, and is inclined to be a light, 

 sandy loam, it may be necessary to water each row every time you irrigate during 

 the season, but the latter is an exception to the rule with us. 



"We never commence irrigating until the beets show they require moisture, 

 (usually letting them suffer a few days), and by so doing it always gives us a nice 

 shaped, long, tapering beet. If the first watering is applied too early we usually have 

 a short, spriggy, undesirable beet. Too much manure or alkali will have the same 

 effect on sugar beets. We generally have to make cross ditches en our beet fields on 

 about every 20 to 30 rods, depending upon the slope and nature of the land. If we 

 run the water farther than this it usually saturates the upper part of the field too 

 much, before the lower end gets sufficient. Great care must be taken in turning the 



