18 



BULLETIN 238, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



In general, the larger the plants when thinned the greater the 

 shock they receive, and the weeds meantime have an opportunity to 

 outstrip the beets, crowding and checking them. (PL VIII.) 



However, the greatest single cause of deficiency in stand is care- 

 less or improper spacing and thinning. As shown in column 16, 

 Table II, the average loss entailed in the plats under observation 

 was 21.41 per cent. It is significant that this dual operation, one of 

 the most expensive in beet culture, is very frequently done by con- 

 tract labor either without supervision or with the most perfunctory 



and intermittent 

 kind of supervision. 

 In European beet 

 fields this operation 

 is under constant 

 supervision. 



The deficiency of 

 stand caused by tins 

 operation is brought 

 about by spacing the 

 plants too far apart, 

 by leaving two or 

 more plants togeth- 

 er, or by carelessly 

 chopping out plants 

 where they should 

 be left. In no in- 

 stance has the writer 

 been able to find the 

 spacing as close as 

 the beet grower in- 

 tended or imagined. 

 An increase of 2 or 3 

 inches in the distance between all the plants would greatly reduce the 

 yield per acre, other things being equal. This excessive spacing is gen- 

 erally unsuspected and imperceptible except by actual measurement. 

 Yet one can scarcely blame hired or contract laborers for hurrying 

 over this work, because in most cases they are paid the same price 

 per acre whether the work be well or badly done and whether the 

 stand be good or poor. It would seem but equitable to offer a 

 bonus for better work, based on the number of plants per acre re- 

 maining after thinning. On the celebrated farm of Sainte Suzanne, 

 belonging to the Prince of Monaco — a farm worked on scientific 

 principles — it is required that the beets be left 11 inches apart in 

 the row. About 40 cents additional per acre is paid if 28,000 beets 

 an acre remain after the second cultivation. 





$9. 



Fig. 5.— A beet cultivator with disks to prevent the seedlings from 

 being covered by the earth thrown up by the cultivator blades. 

 (Courtesy of J. W. Robertson-Scott, London, 1911.) 



