6 BULLETIN 721^ U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



For several years the Office of Sugar-Plant Investigations, jointly 

 with the Office of Farm Management and independently, has been 

 studying the agronomic conditions found in each of the existing and 

 in some of the prospective sugar-beet centers. It is the purpose of 

 this paper to discuss the conditions which have been brought out in 

 these studies and to point out in a general way the factors that are 

 favorable and those that are unfavorable for the production of sugar 

 beets. The primary object of this paper, therefore, is to give a gen- 

 eral survey of the beet-sugar industry and to encourage the more gen- 

 eral application of those piinciples and practices which make for 

 better returns to the grower and to discourage those practices which 

 tend to reduce the yields and quality of sugar beets and of other 

 crops and to unbalance the relation between crop production and the 

 kind, number, and quality of the live stock on the beet farms, the ul- 

 timate object being an increased production of sugar and a stabiliza- 

 tion of the beet-sugar industry. 



SOIL. 



Almost any fertile soil capable of producing good crops of other 

 kinds will, if properly handled, produce good sugar beets. More de- 

 pends upon the physical condition of the soil and the way in which it 

 is handled than upon the so-called kind or type of soil. Extremely 

 sandy soil or soil of a decidedly gravelly type is not usually satis- 

 factory for sugar-beet growing. 



Raw ^oi?.— Generally speaking, raw soil or new soil does not pro- 

 duce as large yields of sugar beets as may be obtained from soil that 

 has been under cultivation for some time. In recent years much new 

 soil has been brought under cultivation through the use of the sugar 

 beets; this in a measure has had a tendency to reduce the average 

 yield of sugar beets in this country. The argument in favor of grow- 

 ing sugar beets on new soil is that this crop will bring the raw soil 

 under control and place it in good tilth for other crops more quickly 

 than almost any other crop now produced on a large scale on Ameri- 

 can farms. It must be expected, therefore, that so long as new sugar- 

 beet territories are being opened in the partially developed sections 

 of the United States this factor, tending to keep down the average 

 yield of beet roots, will be effective. Also in many of the older sugar- 

 beet sections in which the growing of sugar beets is being extended 

 from year to year, whereby new lands are being brought under culti- 

 vation, this factor will be more or less effective in holding down the 

 average yield. In those sections where sugar beets have been grown 

 for many years, as, for example, in Utah, and in which a minimum 

 acreage of new soil is being brought in from year to year, the average 

 yield of beets per acre is strikingly above the average for the entire 



