162 The Sugar-Beet in America 
tops and feeding as hay or than making them into silage. 
When labor is expensive and feed cheap, this may be the 
most economical method of feeding. 
When hay is more expensive and when labor is avail- 
able shortly after the beet harvest, it is common to gather 
the tops after they have cured in the field and stack them 
like hay. Whether it is more profitable to dry-cure the 
tops or to silo them is a difficult question to answer in 
arid regions where curing is easy, but in humid regions 
siloing is unquestionably to be preferred. In case the 
beets were thrown in piles before topping, the tops are 
usually in piles that can be gathered easily; but when 
topping is done directly from rows or by a mechanical 
topper, it is usually necessary to gather the tops with 
a hay rake before hauling them. A large part of the tops 
is always lost in handling them dry; hence it is usually 
advisable to gather while they are still green or only partly 
dry. Piling green results in a smaller loss than does 
curing in the open field. Usually there is considerable 
dirt gathered with the tops. This could be avoided by 
using care in gathering. 
Under ordinary conditions in a sugar-beet region, live- 
stock feeding is an important industry and feed is rather 
expensive because land that might otherwise produce 
forage crops is planted to beets. It is important, there- 
fore, that as much cheap feed be used as possible. Since 
tops are a good and also a cheap live-stock feed, much 
more attention should be given to their preservation than 
is usually done in this country. 
Methods of handling by-products are shown in Plate 
XX. 
