SUGAR BEETS : PREVENTABLE LOSSES IN CULTURE. 11 



reduce or to increase that area beyond certain limits results in a 

 lessened yield per acre. Each crop requires its own special area per 

 plant to yield the best results, but that area must be modified to some 

 extent in different soils, with the available water supply and with 

 climatic variations. 



The cited experiments and practical experience alike show that the 

 sugar beet requires, not only for the highest tonnage but also for the 

 greatest yield of sugar per acre, an area of 144 to 160 square inches 

 per plant, the optimum area varying somewhat with the character 

 of the soil, fertilizers, and climate. In practice, the rows should be 

 spaced not less than 18 or 20 inches apart, to facilitate cultural 

 operations with horse implements. Commonly a distance of 20 

 inches has been adopted in the United States. This, then, is really 

 a closed question. The spacing may be arranged by adjustment of 

 the seed drill. The matter of importance is the spacing between the 

 plants in the rows. 



In most localities and in good beet soils a distance of 8 inches 

 between plants is advised. Each beet would thus have 160 square 

 inches, which, in round numbers, would give 39,200 plants per acre. 

 This might be taken to represent a perfect stand and is the one 

 employed in these tables as the standard for comparison. With 

 beets averaging the moderate weight of 1 pound, such a stand would 

 yield no less than 19.6 tons to the acre. In most of the beet districts 

 of the United States the average weight of beets considerably exceeds 

 this; it does so in all but one of the plats under observation. (See 

 Table II, column 11.) We have seen that the average acre yield in 

 this country during the season of 1910-11 was only 10.17 tons and 

 that of Utah 11.42 tons, as compared with an average yield of 14.84 

 tons to the acre in Germany. 



Since these facts have been experimentally established under test 

 conditions, the data presented in Tables II and III acquire a real 

 significance. Granting the impossibility of obtaining absolutely 

 uniform conditions among the plats, even of each group, it would be 

 unreasonable and illogical to repudiate the strong correlations found 

 each season and to call them mere coincidences. One must acknowl- 

 edge them to be examples of cause and effect. In short, it is held 

 that the losses in stand indicated in these tables correspond more or 

 less closely to the diminished yields. 



As before stated, the apparent exceptions are accounted for by 

 the specific adverse or especially favorable conditions mentioned in 

 relation to them. The evidence of a relationship between the per- 

 centage of stand and the percentage of yield is strengthened to a 

 degree almost equaling that obtained under strict experimental con- 

 ditions by the fact that the data from two pairs of plats are pre- 

 sented, one pair being in each of two very uniform contiguous fields 



