14 BULLETIN 238, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



For the sliding scale $5 a ton for beets containing 16 per cent 

 of sucrose, with 30 cents a ton additional for every increment of 1 

 per cent in sugar content and a deduction of 25 cents a ton for every 

 1 per cent less than 16 per cent (fractional percentages in proportion), is 

 taken to represent about the average rate. 



A consideration of columns 5, 6, and 7 of Table IV will reveal the 

 surprising magnitude of the discrepancies as compared with the 

 yields of the best growers. In some cases this discrepancy is greater 

 per acre than the actual cost of producing the crop, which averages 

 about $42.50 an acre exclusive of manure, rent, or interest on the 

 capital invested. The additional cost of manure would be about 

 $15 to $20 an acre, but as this should preferably be applied to a 

 preceding crop instead of directly to the beets this charge would be 

 shared between two crops. 



HOW TO OBTAIN BETTER STANDS. 



Grave sources of loss have been revealed. They occur not among 

 poor farmers alone, as might have been expected, but among those 

 considered to be good. How great these losses are among the less 

 successful farmers may be surmised after a moment's consideration. 

 The average yield per acre of sugar beets in the United States for the 

 season of 1910-11 was only 10.17 tons; the average for the State of 

 Utah where these observations were made during the same period 

 was 11.42 tons to the acre, while that among the better farmers as 

 taken from these plats was 17.68 tons. Year after year the best 

 beet growers obtain from 20 to 25 tons an acre. (PL I.) Therefore 

 a large army of beet growers must obtain an average yield of much 

 less than 10 tons an acre. Either their land is unsuited to profitable 

 beet culture or their methods are bad or are very inefficiently carried 

 out. In any case the real nature of the trouble should be ascer- 

 tained. If the land is not adapted to beet culture, it would seem 

 better to abandon that crop for a more profitable one; if their 

 methods are at fault, the growers should be instructed by the fac- 

 tory field men. 



To analyze data of this character and to indicate the causes of 

 deficiency in stands of sugar beets, with the accompanying losses, 

 are almost tantamount to pointing the way to an avoidance of such 

 losses 



GERMINATION LOSSES. 



The average loss of stand caused by imperfect germination was 

 19.31 per cent (Table II, column 5), which was due largely to the 

 poor preparation of the seed bed. In the first place, it was noted 

 that fall plowing is seldom practiced and that it is rarely deep enough. 

 One serious result of shallow plowing, early apparent in beet culture, 

 is that weed seeds remain so near the surface that they are enabled 



