152 GARDEN FARMING 



beets as a market-garden crop, or for bunching purposes, should 

 select a warm, quick soil, to which has been applied at least 20 tons 

 per acre of well-rotted stable manure and, in addition to this, a 

 dressing of commercial fertilizer carrying at least 2 per cent of 

 nitrogen, 4 per cent of potash, and 8 per cent of phosphoric acid, 

 at the rate of from 600 to 1000 pounds to the acre. Where means 

 for irrigation are available or where there is no lack of rainfall, the 

 larger amount can be used with safety. 



The soil should be thoroughly and deeply cultivated prior to 

 planting the seed. If a very early planting is contemplated, the 

 soil should be plowed in the fall. It should be broken up from 

 8 to 12 inches in depth, so that the root system of the beet may 

 not be restricted. 



Seed for garden beets. The seed of the beet is a somewhat 

 peculiar and interesting formation. The commercial article known 

 as beet seed is really a fruit, called a seed ball, the seed itself being 

 embedded in a corky pericarp, or outer covering. This corky de- 

 velopment is variable in shape and irregular in size and generally 

 carries more than a single carpel or seed. There are now in 

 progress experiments for the purpose of securing a strain of beets 

 which shall produce a single seed in each seed ball. If this is 

 accomplished, it will be of decided advantage to the grower of 

 stock sugar and market-garden beets, because it will do away with 

 much of the labor of thinning the crop. Very encouraging re- 

 sults have already been obtained, and we look forward to the 

 time when the seed ball, instead of containing several independ- 

 ent seeds and producing three or four seedling beets, will produce 

 only one. 



Planting garden beets. Because of the roughness and irregu- 

 larity of beet seed, it is handled with difficulty by many of the drills 

 and seed-distributing devices usually employed by market gar- 

 deners. It is necessary, in order successfully to scatter seed by a 

 mechanical device, to. use a force feed drill, either one which dips 

 up and carries the seed to the drill point or one which forces it 

 out through an opening. A good type of hand drill is the so-called 

 New Model, which has an agitator constantly working over the 

 orifice through which the seed to be planted reaches the drill tube. 

 Beet seed should be sown from | to i inch deep, according to the 



