SUGAR BEETS: PREVENTABLE LOSSES IN CULTUBE. 19 
The highest percentage the writer has attained by the careful use 
of a 6-inch hoe was 92.58 per cent for one row. His best average for 
8 rows was 83.7 per cent, when working with moderate rapidity. 
ELIMINATION OF HAND SPACING. 
Although it is believed that the singling of beets will never be 
accomplished with machines or implements, it is thought to be 
entirely practicable to effect the spacing in such a manner. 
In this country of high-priced labor, means should be devised to 
eliminate hand labor from farming operations as far as possible. 
Much has been accomplished already toward the successful pulling 
and topping of beets by machinery. A number of machines for 
blocking beets have been patented, and some of them are in success- 
ful operation. In some parts of Europe a 4-row or 6-row cultivator 
is run across the field at right angles to the rows, thus cutting out 
spaces at regular intervals. Generally, this spaces the beets too 
widely. Numerous attempts have been made in the United States 
to accomplish proper spacing by transplanting sugar-beet seedlings 
in the manner that tobacco, cabbage, celery, etc., are successfully 
set out. However, it has been thought that this causes the beets to 
become sprangling, by injuring or turning up the taproots of the 
young plants. 
LOSSES AFTER THINNING AND BEFORE HARVESTING. 
Individually, the losses occurring between the times of thinning 
and harvesting are of minor importance, although they aggregated 
6.82 per cent among the plats under observation during the season 
of 1912. (See Table II, column 17.) A source of loss present every 
season, especially among less experienced beet growers, is that aris- 
ing from the careless or unskilled use of the cultivator, not only when 
turning at the ends of rows, but in the rows themselves, by allowing 
the cultivator to swerve far enough to cut out plants. With a 2-row 
or 4-row cultivator this may occasion a serious loss, because two or 
four rows are injured simultaneously. It need only be said that a 
little more care would appreciably reduce this loss. 
The later in the season that the various depletions in stand are 
made, the more serious is their effect on the yield, because the plants 
then have less chance to respond to space effect by an additional 
increase in size. 
LOSSES FROM THE DRYING OF BEETS. 
Another scarcely suspected loss, not due to deficiency of stand, 
often takes place at harvest. This is caused by leaving the beets 
in open rows or piles in the field after they have been dug. As soon 
as the roots have been torn from the soil, rapid loss of water takes 
place from every portion of the plant. Therefore, whether the beets 
