GROWING SUGAR BEETS IN UTAH AND IDAHO. 
25 
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 
These materials are not used extensively in the irrigated districts 
of the west. Occasionally this item of cost enters into the farm record, 
but as a rule very few men buy and apply commercial fertilizers in the 
intermountain country, especially for the improvement of the beet 
land. The records for 1914-15 did not indicate that any commercial 
materials had been purchased. 
PLANTING. 
In the beet-growing districts of Utah it is customary for the 
factories to own and operate the beet drills. Usually the planting 
is not done by the individual grower, but by some party employed 
by the sugar company to do this work on a number of farms within 
a given area. The men engaged for this purpose usually have small 
farms and are therefore in a position to do some outside work. 
There are several advantages in this arrangement. It is very evi- 
dent that the man who operates a drill for several days in succession 
can do a better grade of work than the man who plants a 6 or 10 
acre tract which requires a fraction of a day or at most not more 
than a full day per year. Furthermore, the small farmer is not 
required to carry an investment in a piece of machinery which is 
used only a few hours each year. A direct charge of 50 cents per 
acre is made to cover the planting and the rent of the drill. Beet 
seed is sold to the farmers at the rate of 15 cents per pound, and 
about 15 pounds per acre are planted. A few growers used slightly 
less than 15 pounds per acre, while some exceeded the standard 
quantity. The farmer hauls the seed from the factory or warehouse 
to the farm. This work is done at a season of the year when the 
fields do not require attention, or is made a secondary feature of 
some special trip to town. The item of hauling seed is cared for 
under the heading "Overhead charges." 
The operators who did their own planting gave estimates on this 
practice, and the results are reported in Table XIV. 
Table XIV. — Planting -practice. 
District. 
Year. 
Number 
of farm 
records. 
Acres. 
planted 
perfarm. 
Hours per acre. 
Total 
cost per 
acre. 
Man. 
Horse. 
Garland 
• 1915 
1914-15 
1915 
5 
8 
24 
22.80 
21.38 
19.50 
0.74 
.89 
.92 
1.48 
1.78 
1.84 
$0.28 
Provo 
.35 
Idaho Falls 
.37 
The rows are uniformly 20 inches apart. In each district the 
crews consisted of one man and two horses (fig. 5). It will be noted 
that the estimates for Garland and Provo were limited to a few 
