100 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. ~ 
Mr. Grarr. Does this thinning-out process require a great deal of 
work? 
Mr. Woops. Yes, sir. 
Mr. Grarr. I know that in Illinois that was the thing that made 
the success of a large beet-sugar factory impossible—a factory with a 
quarter of a million dollars’ capital, because they could not get the 
Illinois farmers to engage in work on their hands and knees. _ 
The CHarrman. That has been the great difficulty everywhere in 
the beet-sugar industry. 
Mr. Woops. There is a machine for dropping one individual ball in 
a place, and several plants come from that ball. Now, if we get the 
one-seed beet ball and put it in, it can be thinned out just like cotton. 
The Cuarrman. Is the seed the result of hybridization? May I use 
the word prepotent, as in the case of an animal? 
Mr. Woops. It is exactly the same in the plants as in the animals, 
and if you produce a desirable variety by hybridization it may be fixed 
by selection until it does not greatly vary; ‘you may then propagate 
from that fixed group of individuals as an established variety. 
The Cuarrman. That is the way we do with animals. We have suc- 
ceeded in raising a breed of hornless or ‘‘muley” Durham cattle. 
Now, the regular Durham is a horned animal, but by selection they 
have succeeded in establishing a breed of ‘‘muley” Durhams. 
Mr. Henry. And the same thing with Jersey cattle, too. * 
Mr. Woops. We are helping the sugar men, and if we can secure a 
variety with one-seeded balls, beet sugar can be produced very much 
cheaper than it is now, and in competition with cane sugar. 
Mr. Grarr. It would go a long way toward solving the sugar prob- 
lem in the United States? 
Mr. Woops. Yes; weare told that that would solve the sugar problem. 
Mr. Gatioway. Heretofore we have been practically importing all 
our seeds. 
The Cuarrman. What do you pay for that now? 
Mr. Woops. We now spend for this work $3,900, and ask an 
increase of $1,100, making $5,000. : 
ae Brooxs. What amount is now paid annually for imported beet 
seeds? 
Mr. Gattoway. Five hundred thousand dollars. 
Mr. Grarr. Where do you import it from? 
Mr. Gatitoway. From Germany and France. We have demon- 
strated the fact that sugar-beet seeds can be grown in certain parts 
of the West containing 20 per cent of sugar, and we can get that seed 
delivered on the Atlantic coast at about the same price we pay for for- 
eign seeds. We have tried to get about 10,000 pounds this year, and 
we plant that side by side with the foreign improved seed to demon- 
strate the value of it. 
Mr. Brooxs. It is true, is it not, that these seeds selected from the 
seeds grown in this country havea high saccharine test and are repro- 
duced with equally high test? 
Mr. Woops. Yes; and on the other hand the seeds produced 1n Ger- 
many with a high saccharine quality do not always turn out well in 
this country. 
Mr. Brooks. It seems to me there is a tremendous field there in the 
one matter of sugar-beet seed. 
Mr. Woops. My work does not include the commercial seed pro- 
