20 BULLETIN 735, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
tion, a heavy crust is hkely to form on the ground and the small 
plants are unable to break through, which necessitates rolling to 
break the crust. If the ground is cloddy, the rolling should be done 
before the seed is planted, as beets never give the best results where 
there is lack of care in the preparation of the seed bed. Getting the 
young plants’ well started early in the spring is one of the essentials 
of a good tonnage of sugar beets. Rolling does not seem to damage 
the plants to any great extent, as they do not break off easily and 
the small leaves are not often crushed. 
Fic. 5.—Cultivating sugar beets with a 4-row cultivator, which will do twice as much 
work as a 2-row machine, with practically the same amount of man labor and 
horse labor. 
CULTIVATION OF BEETS. 
Cultivation starts as soon as the beets are well through the ground 
and continues during the season at short intervals until the beets are 
so large that they shade most of the ground and one can not get 
through the rows without breaking the leaves. In early cultivations 
the work must be done slowly and carefully, as the beets are very 
small and there is danger of covering them with dirt. Knives or 
duck feet are used for the first cultivation, or both are used by attach- 
ing the duck feet behind the knives. (Fig. 5.) In later cultivations 
larger shovels are used, and the work can be done more rapidly than 
in the earlier cultivations. In the first cultivations the ground should 
