GROWING SUGAR BEETS IN THE BILLINGS REGION. 15 
do good work in leveling where depressions are wide. A narrow 
implement will have a tendency to scoop out these places. Four or 
more horses are needed to handle a large float properly, the average 
number for the region being a little more than four. The number of 
horses needed and the efficiency of operation depend upon the size 
and weight of the float. Some hghter material is commonly used on 
top of the implement in order that the driver may ride standing or 
move about, so as to make the leveling more nearly perfect. 
re cea all the growers in the region used some such machine, 
a total of 8,580 acres (nearly 97 per cent of the area planted to 
beets) being thus prepared. 
The growers who did not use a box level of this sort used a drag 
made of overlapping planks. These drags are usually from 38 to 5 
Fic. 2.—Floating sugar-beet land. The homemade implement here shown is used after 
disking to level the ground and put it into good condition for irrigation. 
feet wide and 8 or 10 feet long. The drag is not considered so effi- 
cient an implement for leveling land as a level; the work it does is 
not so thorough. The drag is a somewhat less expensive implement 
to make and to operate and it requires less horsepower. The average 
cost for the 825 acres dragged was 66 cents per acre. 
_ The average acre of land included under the survey was floated 
1.82 times at an average cost of 89 cents per acre. This is the equiva- 
lent of 1.51 hours of man labor and 5.96 hours of horse labor. One 
man with a 4-horse team can float about 12 acres per day. The 
average cost is 49 cents per acre, or 0.83 hour of man labor and 3.27 
hours of horse labor, to go over an acre once with a float. 
Of the farmers who floated their land, 70 per cent went over it 
twice, 22 per cent floated only once, and the other 8 per cent floated 
more than twice. In floating twice it 1s the common custom to float 
both ways of the field. 
