AMERICAN BHET SUGAR. 17 



well again this year, so that I was enabled to purchase a good team and wagon, 

 and add to my stock of agricultural implements, and put money by. In 1893, 

 being fully equipped with teams and implements, my boys and myself did all the 

 work, and we put in 34 acres of beets, eight of which was new land which I got 

 rent free for the breaking. You can understand that I did well this year, when I 

 say I paid $754 rental for the 25 acres. The eight acres of new land gave me 104 

 tons, for which I received $4.00 per ton. I made this year over $2,200, and in 

 October of this year I thought I could commence to buy land, so I paid my first 

 payment down on 60 acres. I continued to have good success, and in 1894 was 

 enabled to make a second payment on the land. I think that this will show what 

 can be done in the beet business. I have now a good home, good teams and good 

 wagons, and all implements necessary to do good farming, and hope soon to own 

 my land. I look upon the beet business as the best payer of good, honest work, 

 and am well satisfied with the results obtained, I have had to work hard before, 

 but have never been paid so well for work done. 



(Written in 1895.) Yours truly. 



DEAR SIR : It affords me pleasure to give you my experience as a beet-grow- 

 ing farmer. I arrived here April i2th, 1891, but did not do much that year, it 

 being too late to go into the beet business. In 1892, however, I made my first 

 trial, putting in 13 acres from which I realized altogether $1000. This pleased me 

 so, that the next year, 1893, I P ut i n 2 5 acres. I was not very happy in the selec- 

 tion of my land, as ten acres of this was fruit land which gave but a poor return 

 in beets, though I made good wages ; but the other 15 acres paid me equally as 

 well as in 1892, and my total returns were over $1600. From 5^ acres I realized 

 $525. Last year was a dry year, and we were not supposed to do so well, yet 

 from forty acres my returns were $2900, which, after paying all expenses, left me 

 and my two boys $2300 for our labor. The average tonnage was 15^ tons to the 

 acre. I have never had less than 15 tons to the acre, and some have shown 27 

 tons per acre. My percentage of sugar has been from 14 to 18 per cent. This 

 country is the best place I have come across yet, either for beet farming or general 

 farming. This last year I had 8 acres of alfalfa ; from this I have fed four horses 

 and four cows, and sold $140 of alfalfa. The average tonnage was i% tons per 

 acre each cutting, and I took off five crops. I find plenty of outside work to do, 

 and this amply pays me all my expenses of raising my beet crop. Myself and 

 two boys do nearly all the work ; one boy is a little over 12 and the other a little 

 over 14 years of age. I am putting in 45 acres of beets for the coming season, 

 and I know of no crop that pays so well for the work put upon it. 



Yours very truly. 



IDEAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH SUGAR BEETS CAN BE GROWN Sue. 

 CESSFUI^Y. In dealing with the most important foundation of the industry, we 

 have, as our standard of excellence, such conditions as will favor the production 

 of the ideal sugar beet. Such a beet will not exceed two pounds in weight. It 

 will be of the parsnip shape, from twenty-five to thirty inches in length from the 

 top of the outstretched leaf to the extreme of the root. It will be free from lat- 

 teral roots, and when ripe will have few hair-like rootlets, save in the character- 

 istic channel or groove that is always found half winding down the length of the 

 root. In sugar it will average 14 per cent; in coefficient purity, 80. It will be 



