THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 43 



to work under contract. Usually the sugar company has no interest 

 in the contract labor except in helping the grower to get his work 

 clone at the proper time and in the best possible manner. The land- 

 owner or beet grower desires a contract, so that he will be sure of the 

 necessary help in handling his crop at the proper time, but above all 

 the laborers themselves desire a contract which specifies the number 

 of acres that a given individual, family, or other group of workers 

 will be permitted to handle and the price that they will receive per 

 acre for their labor. These contracts are usually made with so-called 

 labor families, although individuals and groups of individuals some- 

 times enter into the contracts. The labor families are usually in the 

 cities during the winter, employed in mills or factories, and in the 

 summer they go out and work in the beet fields. For their own pro- 

 tection they must have a contract before they can afford to leave their 

 employment to take up a new line of work. Many of these families 

 return from year to year to work for the same beet growers. The 

 contract labor usually covers all of the handwork used in growing 

 the beet crop ; namely, the blocking, thinning, hoeing, pulling, and 

 topping. The landowner and tenant do all the teamwork, from the 

 plowing of the land to the hauling of the beets to the sugar mill or 

 loading station. The hand laborers usually work for a specified rate 

 per acre, a part of which amount is furnished them after each opera- 

 tion. Occasionally they receive a specified bonus for each ton above 

 a yield agreed upon. The object of this bonus is to encourage the 

 laborers to maintain the best possible stands and to produce the 

 highest possible yield per acre. 



During the present acute labor shortage many locajities have or- 

 ganized the school boys and girls, especially for the beet-thinning 

 work. 



THE SUCCESSFUL GROWER. 



The successful production of sugar beets on any farm depends to 

 a great extent upon the temperament of the farmer and upon his 

 attitude toward the production of this crop. As in other lines of 

 business, the man's ability to conduct his business successfully is 

 largely a matter of individual temperament, judgment, and ability 

 to do the right thing in the right way and at the right time. There 

 are many farmers, as there are many men in other lines of business, 

 who are not adapted to the kind of work upon which they are 

 engaged. It is not to be expected that these men would have any 

 more success in the growing of sugar beets than in other lines of 

 agriculture. Again, there are farmers well adapted by temperament 

 to the particular line of farming which they are following, but who 

 would not be successful in some other line of agriculture; for 

 example, a man might grow grain on a large scale and do it very 



