32 BULLETIN 805, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to in order to control the destructive pests, but a large number of the 

 sugar-beet pests, including some of the fungi and bacteria as well 

 as insect pests, may be controlled by crop rotation. 



Effect of sugar beets upon- other crops. — As a rule, the effect of 

 sugar beets upon succeeding crops is beneficial. This is especially 

 true of the small grains ; that is, small grains grown after sugar beets 

 will almost invariably produce larger yields than when these grains 

 follow other crops. The sugar beet does not gather nitrogen from 

 the air and transform it into plant food, but, owing to its long main 

 root and its uneven feeding rootlets, it gathers a considerable quan- 

 tity of several soluble mineral salts and stores them in the beet crown, 

 and when the beet tops are fed to live stock and the manure returned 

 to the soil considerable fertility is added. In addition to this im- 

 proved fertility of the soil the methods of cultivation employed in 

 growing and harvesting the beet crop put the soil in splendid tilth, 

 thereby forming good seed and root beds for the crops that follow 

 the beets. Although sugar beets are grown primarily for the cash 

 value of the roots as a source of sugar, the feeds obtained from the 

 beet tops, molasses, and pulp, and the increased fertility and improved 

 tilth of the soil are recognized as indirect benefits to the beet growers, 

 and are important factors in considering the advisability of growing- 

 sugar beets. These indirect benefits due to sugar-beet growing have 

 only a remote bearing upon the price paid for beets and upon the 

 price of sugar. They should, however, be considered in figuring the 

 profits derived from sugar-beet culture. 



COMPETING CROPS. 



Crops grown in competition with sugar beets may or may not be 

 suitable for rotation with sugar beets. By competing crops is meant 

 those crops grown in sugar-beet areas which appear to be more profit- 

 able or more easily produced, or for some reason are so favored by 

 the farmer that he may possibly prefer them to sugar beets. Some of 

 the competing crops do not lend themselves readily to a rotation with 

 sugar beets. In such cases the competing crops may be a limiting 

 factor in sugar-beet production on an individual farm, or if the crop 

 is a general one it may be a limiting factor in sugar-beet production 

 in a given community. A crop may compete with sugar beets because 

 of its market price, because of the small amount of labor involved in 

 its production, because of the peculiar fitness of the soil for the grow- 

 ing of that crop, because of local market conditions, or because it fits 

 more closely the requirements of the individual farms than any other 

 crop. The competing crops in the sugar-beet sections are beans, to- 

 bacco, potatoes, muskmelons, alfalfa, and grains. Other crops may 

 temporarily be competing with sugar beets, and some of those men- 

 tioned may for local or other reasons temporarily cease to be compet- 



