104 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 
comparatively slight for a few weeks, and the beets are worked up before material 
injury occurs. 
In the colder climate of Utah, where the temperature goes as low asin any part 
of the United States, it was formerly thought that the beets must be carefully stored 
in expensive silos cr sheds. Hence when the Lehi factory was first built, the five 
frost proof beet sheds shown on Page 111 were built—of lumber, the walls being lined 
with straw. Each shed is 500 ft long and 26 ft wide, constructed with a sluice in the 
center so that the beets can be shoveled into it and brought to the factory by water, 
which is not only economy of labor but it gives them a thorough washing. 
Manager Cutler writes: ‘‘We have discovered since then, that frost is something 
we are not afraid of, providing that our beets are brought here in a perfect state. We 
have erected since then several platforms, one of which has sides to it, but the top is 
left entirely open. It is 500 feet long by 34 feet wide, and will hold fully 3000 tons 
of beets. We also have other platforms with a sluice in the center, but without any 
sides, and we use a movable railroad track—as fast as the beets are unloaded the track 
is moved further out, until we have an enormous pile resting on the plank or plat- 
form as above described. ‘This system has worked admirably, and the best beets we 
had stored were those that were left entirely open to the weather. The system of 
storing in large open piles has proven satisfactory under our conditions. We have 
stored some 6000 tons of beets in piles on the bare ground, sluices having first been 
constructed to carry the beets by water to the factory from the piles. When the frost 
came(and we had the temperature as low as 10 degrees below zero in December, 1896, ) 
it froze over the surface of the stored beets to the depth of two or three beets, but 
there was enough vegetable heat generated in the large pile to keep the beets in good 
condition and we have never yet lost a beet from frost. We are more afraid of the 
sun’s rays than we are of frost. There was some loss of sugar in the small outside 
layer of beets that was frosted, but it was not enough to be of much importance, and 
the loss is infinitesimal compared with the expense of storing in sheds.’’ 
The two past seasons are the only ones in which this method of storing in large 
open piles without protection from the weather has been tried in severe American 
winters. The author is not yet ready to recommend this method, as a general prac. 
tice, in the severe cold weather and alternating freezing and thawing of a northern 
winter in the middle or eastern states. It should be carefully experimented with un- 
der the conditions in each locality. 
This plan is not feasible on the farm. Even in Utah, the factory authorities have 
preferred that the farmers store their late beets in the field according to the system 
much in vogue in Europe. When this is done, the factory pays the farmer 25 to 35¢ 
per ton for thus storing the beets and delivering them when wanted. For this pur- 
pose, tbe Utah plan is to dig a few rows of beets, then to run a tongue scraper down 
the field, making a shallow trench. As the beats are dug and topped, they are thrown 
into this trench and covered with leaves, a furrow is plowed down each side to drain 
off the water, if it should storm, and the leaves are covered with a little dirt to keep 
them from blowing off the beets. The beets thus stored have generally come in good 
condition. Some were frozen, but as a rule, the farmers feel that they can store the 
beets and deliver them at almost any time within two or three months in good condi- 
