UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 760 
Office of the Secretary 
J Joint Contribution from the Office of Farm Management 
*" R. L. ADAMS, Acting Chief 
and 
Bureau of Plant Industry 
W. A. TAYLOR, Chief 
Washington, D. C. 
March 14, 1919 
FARM PRACTICE IN GROWING SUGAR BEETS IN 
THREE CALIFORNIA DISTRICTS. 
By T. H. Summers, Scientific Assistant, L. A. Moorhouse, Agriculturist, and 
R. S. Washburn, Scientific Assistant, Office of Farm Management, and 
C. O. Townsend, Pathologist in Charge of Sugar-Plant Investigations, Bureau 
of Plant Industry. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Summary of results 3 
Method of investigation 3 
History and development of the sugar beet 
industry in California 4 
Agriculture of areas studied 6 
Farm practices 11 
Cost of producing sugar beets 3G 
Summary and distribution of costs 42 
Page. 
Average returns and margin above cost 43 
The effect of size of beet acreage and yield per 
acre on the cost of production 44 
Value of the sugar-beet tops 45 
Beet receipts in comparison with other farm 
receipts 46 
Labor requirements 48 
The data presented in the following pages are based npon 165 
farm records obtained in three typical sugar-beet regions of Cali- 
fornia. (See fig. 1.) The first part of the bulletin deals with farm 
practice in the production of the sugar beet. The second part dis- 
cusses the requirements of the beet crop in terms of the values that 
prevailed during 1915 and 1916. If such requirements are known, 
that is, the amount of labor, seed, water, etc., used, the cost of pro- 
ducing sugar beets can be ascertained for any given crop year by 
substituting current rates for those used in this study. Actual costs 
for 1915-1916 are presented solely for purposes of comparison. 
Eighty-one records were obtained south of Los Angeles, in Los 
Angeles and Orange Counties; 45 were taken at Oxnard, in Ventura 
Note. — This bulletin is the fourth of a series of publications which have been prepared 
to give the results of an investigation dealing with the farm practice involved in growing 
sugar beets in four of the more important sugar-beet areas in the United States. The 
first bulletin dealt with this study in Utah and Idaho, the second took up the work in 
Colorado, and the third gave the results obtained in Michigan and Ohio. 
89948°— Bull. 760—19 1 
