ROOT CROPS AND TUBERS. 65 



that are clear-skinned, nicely tapering, having a large amount 

 of sugar and a small amount of ash material. We could thus 

 develop beets good for sugar making, whose nature it is 

 to produce sugar. In this way the sugar beets have been 

 developed, and in this way the seedsmen are still producing 

 improved seed. To grow good sugar beets the soil must be 

 well-drained and well-tilled, the plants must be grown closer 

 together than when grown for feeding stock, and the roots must 

 be kept well covered, since the sugar is stored in the part 

 under the soil. Any green collar on the beets will, like the 

 green leaf, have too much mineral matter. The beets are taken 

 to the factory, cleaned, pulped fine, the juice extracted, and 

 the sugar obtained from it by evaporation. Sugar, like 

 butter, is made up from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which 

 come from the air and the rain ; so that if the leaves are left 

 in the soil, and the pulp taken back and fed on the farm there 

 is little or nothing lost from the soil. 



THE POTATO is here included among the roots, and yet we 

 all know it is quite different in form and growth from the 

 beet and the carrot. We do not sow seeds, but potatoes 

 or parts of potatoes ; the method of growth under ground 

 is peculiar ; and the branching tops and blossoms are quite 

 different from those of the roots. If we examine a potato 

 tuber we find upon it many eyes or buds. If we place the 

 potato in a warm damp room these buds grow out into green 

 stems. We can even cut it into many pieces and still 

 the eyes will send out stems. We do not cut up roots for 

 planting ; we sow their seed. If we pull up a hill of young 

 potatoes we find what appear to be two sets of roots, one having 

 little balls upon them, the other none. Trace those that carry 

 the little potatoes back to the stem and you find that they are 

 really branches of the stem, whereas the others are the true 

 roots. Then we conclude that the potatoes grow on under- 

 ground stems, that they are really swellings of the stem and the 



