THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 43 
to work under contract. Usually the sugar company has no interest 
in the contract labor except in helping the grower to get his work 
done at the proper time and in the best possible manner. The land- 
owner or beet grower desires a contract, so that he will be sure of the 
necessary help in handling his crop at the proper time, but above all 
the laborers themselves desire a contract which specifies the number 
of acres that a given individual, family, or other group of workers 
will be permitted to handle and the price that they will receive per 
acre for their labor. These contracts are usually made with so-called 
labor families, although individuals and groups of individuals some- 
times enter into the contracts. The labor families are usually in the 
cities during the winter, employed in mills or factories, and in the 
summer they go out and work in the beet fields. For their own pro- 
tection they must have a contract before they can afford to leave their 
employment to take up a new line of work. Many of these families 
return from year to year to work for the same beet growers. The 
contract labor usually covers all of the handwork used in growing 
the beet crop ; namely, the blocking, thinning, hoeing, pulling, and 
topping. The landowner and tenant do all the teamwork, from the 
plowing of the land to the hauling of the beets to the sugar mill or 
loading station. The hand laborers usually work for a specified rate 
per acre, a part of which amount is furnished them after each opera- 
tion. Occasionally they receive a specified bonus for each ton above 
a yield agreed upon. The object of this bonus is to encourage the 
laborers to maintain the best possible stands and to produce the 
highest possible yield per acre. 
During the present acute labor shortage many localities have or- 
ganized the school boys and girls, especially for the beet-thinning 
work. 
THE SUCCESSFUL GROWER. 
The successful production of sugar beets on any farm depends to 
a great extent upon the temperament of the farmer and upon his 
attitude toward the production of this crop. As in other lines of 
business, the man's ability to conduct his business successfully is 
largely a matter of individual temperament, judgment, and ability 
to do the right thing in the right way and at the right time. There 
are many farmers, as there are many men in other lines of business, 
who are not adapted to the kind of work upon which they are 
engaged. It is not to be expected that these men would have any 
more success in the growing of sugar beets than in other lines of 
agriculture. Again, there are farmers well adapted by temperament 
to the particular line of farming which they are following, but who 
would not be successful in some other line of agriculture; for 
example, a man might grow grain on a large scale and do it very 
