18 INDIRECT BENEFITS OF SUGAR-BEET CULTURE. 



a bumper crop, and balance of 15 acres, or 3 acres, are to beets again this year. This 

 year have 26 acres to beets with good prospect for 11 or 12 tons. This report was made 

 and kept on one of my "eighties." On the other have grown in the last four seasons,- 

 including 13 acres this year, 71 acres, with about the same results in regard to follow- 

 ing crops, although have no record of different fields and yield. (W. J. Davis,- 

 Sunfield.) 



It gives me great pleasure in having a chance to show to my brother farmers the lit- 

 tle I know about sugar beets placing the soil in a better mechanical condition for other 

 grain crops than any other crop in the rotation. On a 6-acre lot of beets I harvested 

 11 tons per acre of beets. I followed the beets with barley and got 50 bushels per acre, 

 an increase of 50 per cent as compared with crops raised by my neighbors and myself 

 formerly. The above 6 acres was put to wheat after the barley and made 35 bushels 

 per acre, and the stand of clover is good for sore eyes. I am more than satisfied with 

 the beets, not alone for the money crop, but also the permanent good to the land. 

 (W. L. Huber, Charlotte.) 



WISCONSIN. 



J. L. Walsh, of Beloit, reports that with a farm of which 400 acres are under cultiva- 

 tion, the principal crops being cabbage, sugar beets, oats, onions, and clover, has 

 grown sugar beets for five years and has 75 acres of beets which, under normal condi- 

 tions, yield 18 tons per acre. Follows a four-year rotation, including cabbages two years; 

 beets one year, oats and clover. Follows sugar beets with grain and clover, then 

 cabbages. Plows 7 inches deep, and disks and harrows until seed bed is perfect. 

 Uses barnyard manure and commercial fertilizer. Hoes his beets twice and culti- 

 vates with a horse seven or eight times. Raised 46 bushels of oats to the acre on a 

 37-acre field, which the following year was put to beets, and the following year har- 

 vested 107 bushels of oats to the acre, while his yield from a 7-acre field of potatoes 

 which before produced between 75 and 90 bushels, after beets increased to 225 bushels. 

 He says: "I grew 150 acres of beets in 1907, and in 1908 the same land and 100 addi- 

 tional acres to beets on the same farm. In 1909 the whole was sown to oats and pro- 

 duced 87 bushels per acre." 



In reply to your letter concerning the number of bushels of grain raised on sugar- 

 beet ground, will say that from 11 acres of sugar-beet ground I raised 783 bushels of 

 oats this year (71 bushels per acre), and that was all the oats I had sowed this year. 

 The other farms joining mine only had a yield of between 30 to 40 bushels. Mr. 

 Stieneke, one of my neighbors, raised over 75 bushels of oats to the acre on sugar-beet 

 land. (Dell Tuttle, Ripon.) 



For the past seven years I have had from 2 acres to 30 acres of beets sugar beets 

 on this farm. I always have found sugar-beet land the best for small grain, oats and 

 barley and clover and timothy, of any land; much better than corn land. I find a 

 crop of sugar beets well cared for, pays as good as any crop at high prices, and the best 

 crop to clear the land of all foul weeds, including quack and Canada thistle. On a 

 15-acre lot where sugar beets were raised last year, 1908, I thrashed and sold 600 

 bushels of barley (40 bushels per acre) which graded 47 pounds per bushel. Thirty 

 bushels barley per acre is a good crop here. On an 18-acre lot where 11 acres sugar 

 beets and 6 acres cucumbers and 1 acre corn were raised last year, 1908, I thrashed 

 1,000 bushels oats. On the cucumber land the oats were weedy, rusty, and lodged 

 very green, which made a good 60 bushels of oats per acre on the sugar-beet land. 

 Forty to 50 bushels of oats per acre is a good crop here. (R. M. Sherwood, Ripon.) 



IOWA. 



In 1908 I grew 3 acres of sugar beets for the Iowa Sugar Co., receiving 12 tons per 

 acre. In 1909 I planted the same ground to corn. Adjoining the 3 acres of beets I 

 broke up some new land and planted it to corn. During the growing season the corn 

 on the new land stood taller than the corn on the beet ground. When I husked the 

 corn this fall, the yield from the beet ground was 70 bushels per acre, and the yield 

 from the new ground was 60 bushels per acre. In my estimation, beets do not hurt 

 the ground, but improve it for the next crop. (C. Grimm, Cresco.) 



Followed beets with oats, 1909, 20-acre field. Field seeded to clover and hay taken 

 off the year before the beets. Beets went from 12 to 13 tons per acre. Oats thrashed 

 out 65 bushels per acre and weighed out 70 bushels per acre, average for 20 acres,' 

 the champion yield in Iowa for 1909. (Leonard Miller, Waverly.) 



E. H. Mallory, of Hampton, has a 200-acre farm and has 44 acres in beets, which 

 have increased his yield or corn from 50 bushels to 60 bushels, and oats averaging from 

 20 to 30 bushels have increased to 50 bushels. 



