312 ESSENTIALS OF BOTANY 



complicated one, consisting, as usually carried out, of the 

 following steps : 



(1) Planting the best seed that can be bought. 



(2) Chemically testing average samples of the roots 

 grown from the seed of (1) to see if they are good enough 

 to breed from. 



(3) Selecting the best single roots by a chemical test. 

 Less than one-half of one per cent of all the beets tested 

 pass this examination. 



(4) Planting the mother roots selected in (3) for the pro- 

 duction of what is called " elite seed." 



(5) Growing from elite seed small beets which are planted 

 to secure commercial seed. 



It requires five years to obtain seed in large quantities 

 from the very few selected roots with which the process 

 of securing improved seed is begun. ^ 



Some notion of the thoroughness with which European 

 seed-growers choose their beets may be gathered from the 

 fact that in 1889-1890 one of the most important firms 

 tested 2,782,300 roots, from which it selected only 3043 

 to be planted for seed production. Constant pains must 

 be taken in maintaining the best possible seed supply, as 

 the quality becomes lowered at once when the seed is grown 

 without special precautions. Two of the most serious 

 ways in which a poor stock of sugar-beets falls short are 

 in the low percentage of sugar and in the production of 

 many worthless annual plants. In central Europe the 

 annual individuals sometimes constitute twenty per cent 

 of the entire crop. 



The average yield of sugar from American-grown beets 

 is at present twelve per cent or less. Exceptional beets 



1 See Yearbook, United States Department of Agriculture, 1904. 



