CuKL. — On the Growth of Sugar-Beet in Xew Zealand. 145 



farmers growing them, and there diied, and then sent on to the central 

 factory, as is done in some parts of France and Germany. The farmers 

 could then deliver to these branch estabUshments the beetroots from their 

 fields, and receive back payment at the rate of from 15s. to 20s. per ton of 

 beets, according to the amount of sugar therein contained, which would 

 depend upon the kind of seed sown and the care taken in its cultivation ; 

 and, as farmers could easily grow from twenty to thhty tons of the best 

 kinds of beet with the proportions of sugar ranging from 9 to 13 per cent, 

 on all ordinary lands, and upon selected lands higher percentages than these, 

 (at which increasing percentages of sugar it would be profitable for the 

 factors to pay them much more than the 20s. per ton of beets delivered) it 

 can be seen that there would be no difiiculty for the farmer to realize from 

 each acre he laid in sugar-beets a gross sum of £'20 and over per acre. 

 Against this must be. set the ploughing, seeding, manuring, cultivating, 

 gathering, carting to factory, and wear and loss, a sum of £7 per acre, which, 

 deducted from the £20 realized by the sale of the beet, would leave £13 

 profit upon ever}' acre grown. But even if the expenses were, h'om locality, 

 etc., greater, and the returns somewhat less, there would still be a very con- 

 siderable profit, which, by any calculation, would be far greater than at pre- 

 sent made by any use to which the land could be turned. 



Upon examining my notes of the profit made by farmers in France, 

 Germany, and elsewhere, I find they are much larger than my highest 

 figures ; and, better than all, instead of this being a temporary advantage to 

 the farmer to cultivate beetroot, it is a great gain to him besides what he 

 acquires directly from the sale of the beetroot, as it is a well-proved fact 

 that the fields improve each year under beet culture, and that, after the 

 beetroot comes off, the land will grow a better crop of wheat or other corn 

 than it would before these roots were grown. In fact, the beet crop is an 

 excellent preparation and preparatory crop for wheat or other corn, and, in 

 addition to the roots sold, the green tops of the beet can be fed to cattle or 

 live stock as well ; and then the manure applied to the land with the beet 

 crop, and the working this gets, so prepares the soil for the subsequent crop- 

 ing that a beet crop m rotation enables the farmer to grow more wheat in a 

 series of years tlian he could without the beet being grown on his land. 



Again, in many parts of Germany and France when the farmer sends a load 

 of beets to the factory he brings back a return load of the expressed beet- 

 pulp, from which the sugar has been extracted, and with this he feeds cattle 

 or other live stock, thus adding food for his animals, and letting them turn 

 it into manure for his fields ; so that, while feeding the leaves and pulp back 

 to his cattle, he only removes the sugar which the beets made while growing 

 upon his land ; and, as the sugar is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and 



19 



