18 
BULLETIN" 238, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
In general, the larger the plants when thinned the greater the 
shock they receive, and the weeds meantime have an opportunity to 
outstrip the beets, crowding and checking them. (PI. VIII.) 
However, the greatest single cause of deficiency in stand is care- 
less or improper spacing and thinning. As shown in column 16, 
Table II, the average loss entailed in the plats under observation 
was 21.41 per cent. It is significant that this dual operation, one of 
the most expensive in beet culture, is very frequently done by con- 
tract labor either without supervision or with the most perfunctory 
and intermittent 
kind of supervision. 
In European beet 
fields this operation 
is under constant 
supervision. 
The deficiency of 
stand caused by this 
operation is brought 
about by spacing the 
plants too far apart, 
by leaving two or 
more plants togeth- 
er, or by carelessly 
chopping out plants 
where they should 
be left. In no in- 
stance has the writer 
been able to find the 
spacing as close as 
the beet grower in- 
tended or imagined. 
An increase of 2 or 3 
inches in the distance between all the plants would greatly reduce the 
yield per acre, other things being equal. This excessive spacing is gen- 
erally unsuspected and imperceptible except by actual measurement. 
Yet one can scarcely blame hired or contract laborers for hurrying 
over this work, because in most cases they are paid the same price 
per acre whether the work be well or badly done and whether the 
stand be good or poor. It would seem but equitable to offer a 
bonus for better work, based on the number of plants per acre re- 
maining after thinning. On the celebrated farm of Sainte Suzanne, 
belonging to the Prince of Monaco — a farm worked on scientific 
principles — it is required that the beets be left 11 inches apart in 
the row. About 40 cents additional per acre is paid if 28,000 beets 
an acre remain after the second cultivation. 
Fig. 5.— A beet cultivator with disks to prevent the seedlings from 
being covered by the earth thrown up by the cultivator blades. 
(Courtesy of J. W. Robertson-Scott, London, 1911.) 
