184 



Sugar Beet in England. 



[May, 



Home Grown Sugar Limited, the Company in which the 

 Ministry holds half the share capital, has now closed its list 

 Sugar Beet in °^ con ^ rac ^ s w ith farmers who have agreed 

 4L aland • *° g row sugar beet daring the present year. 



Prospects tor 1921. The ca P acit y of the f actoi T is 60 > 000 tons 

 of beet or 600 tons per day for 100 days, 



but acting on the advice of their French specialists, the 

 management have limited the tonnage for the first year to 

 20,000 so as not to overload the factory at a time when the 

 machinery is new. and the English staff to be employed are 

 being trained under the French specialists appointed to 

 supervise each process. 



The farmers in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, to whom 

 beet is a new crop, have shown the necessary enterprise, and 

 therefore, it would have been possible to have doubled the acre- 

 age actually contracted for ; indeed, many such contractors 

 are growing a smaller acreage than they had' wished. There 

 are 425 farmers with an average of 5 J acres under cultivation. 

 The 20,000 tons expected from the 2,365 acres contracted for 

 will be despatched from 156 railway and barge stations, and 

 a large tonnage will also be transported by road. For the 

 reasons stated above, only 200 acres are being grown on the 

 Kelham Estate, instead of the 400 originally contemplated. 

 The price is £4 per ton delivered at the factory, which is 

 equivalent to £3 7s. 6d. delivered on rail, and this price was 

 fixed after careful calculation of costs, so as to give an 

 incentive to the grower during the first year to make a speciality 

 of his beet crop, devote his best attention to it, and not limit 

 his expenditure on fertilisers, cultivations and supervision — ■ 

 all of which have a material effect upon sugar content as well 

 as yield. 



According to the figures of the test crops on the Kelham 

 Estate last year, the cost per acre of 12 tons delivered on rail 

 was .£29 3s. 4d., and the sugar content averaged over 20 per 

 cent, on the crops with a complete manurial dressing. 



A silver cup has been offered by the British Sugar Beet 

 Growers' Society, which promoted the present Company and 

 has been assisting in the propaganda among farmers. It is 

 to be competed for each year by growers of 10 acres and 

 upwards, and the competition will be confined this year to 

 growers for the Kelham factory. In this competition sugar 

 content secures the largest number of points. 



It now appears certain that in spite of the shortage of 



