GROWING SUGAR BEETS IN" CALIFORNIA. 11 
beans are grown continuously on the better-drained and more valu- 
able land. The fact that the beet is grown on the less productive 
land may explain in part the relatively low yield in this district. A 
few of these men occasionally grow a crop of barley on the beet land, 
while others sometimes let it lie fallow for a season. 
In the Salinas area beets were grown after beets on 64 per cent of 
the farms. The tendency to rotate occasionally with barley was more 
in evidence here than in the other districts visited. 
Considering the benefits that are usually obtained through follow- 
ing a well-planned cropping system, it would seem that the crop land 
in these areas is not as well managed as would seem to be advisable. 
RELATION OF BEET ACREAGE TO TILLABLE AREA. 
The total acreage per farm averages about 200 acres at Salinas, 195 
at Oxnard, and 150 at Los Angeles. About 93 per cent of the farm 
land in the Los Angeles area is tillable and in the Oxnard district 94 
per cent is tillable. At Salinas the figure drops to 89 per cent. 
At Los Angeles and Salinas more than 50 per cent of the tillable 
land is utilized by the beet crop, while at Oxnard over one-third of 
the tillable area is devoted to beets. 
FARM PRACTICES. 
SCATTERING BEET TOPS. 
Beet tops are usually plowed under in the Salinas area. Tops are 
of considerable value for fertilizing the. land, the best results being 
obtained when they are evenly distributed over the field. The beet 
tops when cut are usually left in rows, with occasional small piles 
in the row. Before the land is plowed for the succeeding crop of 
beets the tops are sometimes scattered over the field with a harrow. 
This operation is known as " scattering tops." One harrowing is suf- 
ficient to do the work. Fifty per cent of the Salinas growers scat- 
tered the beet tops before plowing. An average crew of one man 
and six horses was used, with a 16-foot harrow. The time required 
per acre was 0.42 man hours and 2.47 horse hours, the labor cost per 
acre being 34 cents. 1 
MANURING. 
In the California areas farm manure is exceedingly scarce. Al- 
though it is the general practice to spread all available manure upon 
the beet land, in the Oxnard area only about 9 per cent of the beet 
1 In computing the cost of labor a uniform rate of 10 cents per hour was used for 
horse labor. The man-labor rate at Oxnard and Salinas was 21 cents per hour, while 
at Los Angeles a man-labor rate of 20 cents per hour was used. 
