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



are left untopped or are topped and thrown in small piles or windrows, 



according to custom, the wind and sunshine cause the beets to lose 



weight. It has been shown that the loss in weight so occasioned 



may exceed 5 per cent a day for several days in succession, the 



percentage of loss gradually decreasing as the water is progressively 



withdrawn from the beets. 



This circumstance could be taken advantage of when beets are 



dug which are found not to have attained the required percentage of 



sucrose. The water is withdrawn by evaporation, but the sugar is not. 



Therefore, a concentration of sugar would take place in consequence 



of the evaporation of a portion of the water by permitting the beets to 



dry out through exposure in the field after digging. This, doubtless, 



would soon be sufficient to augment the sugar percentage to the 



required degree. 



SUMMARY. 



A striking variation in the yield of sugar beets on the different 

 farms in any particular beet district of the United States, even 

 though of very restricted area, may be noted every season. 



Since the climatic factors are practically uniform in such a 

 restricted area or district, with cultural methods almost identical 

 and soil types within that area not very diverse, additional causes for 

 these great variations hi yield are to be sought. 



Employing as a basis for comparison the stand which experiment 

 and experience have shown to be the optimum^suhject to some 

 modification for different soil conditions — namely, a stand containing 

 39,200 plants per acre, which would result by leaving beets 8 inches 

 apart in rows 20 inches apart, these studies show that even among 

 experienced 'beet growers, many of them truck growers, deficiencies 

 in stand exist to an extent quite unsuspected. 



These deficiencies of stand may be divided into three groups: 

 (1) Those occurring in the germination stand, averaging 19.32 

 per cent among the plats of 1912; (2) those due to improper spacing 

 and thinning, averaging 27.3 per cent among the plats of 1911 and 

 23.27 per cent in 1912; and (3) those occurring between thinning and 

 harvest, ranging from 2.54 to 12.85 per cent, with an average of 7.26 

 per cent among the 18 plats from which these data were obtained. 

 Together these represent a total mean deficiency of stand of more 

 than 50 per cent. 



Most of these losses in stand can be greatly reduced by the applica- 

 tion of better methods or a more careful adherence to already existing 

 ones, by the more thorough supervision of hired labor, and by the 

 elimination of contract work as far as possible. The losses may be 

 considered as largely the result of inexperience and inefficiency. 

 This is emphasized by the fact that as a rule where losses from one 

 source are great, those from other sources are correspondingly large. 



