324 FIELD CROP PRODUCTION 



into four distinct types. They are : first, the garden beet, 

 grown for table use ; second, chard, grown for its leaves, 

 which are used as greens ; third, the sugar beet, grown for 

 the sugar ; and fourth, mangel-wurzels, grown for feeding 

 live stock. Only the last two types will be discussed in 

 this book. 



THE SUGAR BEET 



333. History. — While beets have been cultivated for 

 many centuries, it was not until the middle of the eight- 

 eenth century that they were found to be of value as a 

 source of sugar. This fact was discovered by a German 

 chemist who, having analyzed several different plants, 

 found that the beet contained the highest percentage of 

 sugar of the plants analyzed. Many difficulties were 

 encountered in the extraction of the sugar, and it was 

 not until 1812 that beet sugar appeared on the market, 

 and then only in small quantities. Since beet sugar 

 first appeared in a commercial form, great progress has 

 been made in the methods of manufacture and in the 

 improvement of the beet by selection for higher sugar 

 content. To-day the beet sugar business is a great in- 

 dustry, employing great armies of men, women, and children, 

 the product of whose labor holds a most important place 

 in the feeding of the nation. Sugar beets were first in- 

 troduced in the United States in 1839, but they were not 

 grown successfully, and no permanent place was accorded 

 them in the agriculture of this country until 1869, when 

 they were first successfully grown and a sugar factory 

 was established in California. 



334. Description. — The beet plant has large, broad 

 leaves which spring from the crown of the enlarged tap 

 root. The enlarged root, or the beet, grows almost entirely 

 underground, differing in this respect from the mangel- 



