14 BULLETIN 238, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
For the sliding scale $5 a ton for beets containing 16 per cent 
of sucrose, with 30 cents a ton additional for every increment of 1 
per cent in sugar content and a deduction of 25 cents a ton for every 
1 per cent less than 16 per cent (fractional percentages in proportion), is 
taken to represent about the average rate. 
A consideration of columns 5, 6, and 7 of Table IV will reveal the 
surprising magnitude of the discrepancies as compared with the 
yields of the best growers. In some cases this discrepancy is greater 
per acre than the actual cost of producing the crop, which averages 
about $42.50 an acre exclusive of manure, rent, or interest on the 
capital invested. The additional cost of manure would be about 
$15 to $20 an acre, but as this should preferably be applied to a 
preceding crop instead of directly to the beets this charge would be 
shared between two crops. 
HOW TO OBTAIN BETTER STANDS. 
Grave sources of loss have been revealed. They occur not among 
poor farmers alone, as might have been expected, but among those 
considered to be good. How great these losses are among the less 
successful farmers may be surmised after a moment's consideration. 
The average yield per acre of sugar beets in the United States for the 
season of 1910-11 was only 10.17 tons; the average for the State of 
Utah where these observations were made during the same period 
was 11.42 tons to the acre, while that among the better farmers as 
taken from these plats was 17.68 tons. Year after year the best 
beet growers obtain from 20 to 25 tons an acre. (PI. I.) Therefore 
a large army of beet growers must obtain an average yield of much 
less than 10 tons an acre. Either their land is unsuited to profitable 
beet culture or their methods are bad or are very inefficiently carried 
out. In any case the real nature of the trouble should be ascer- 
tained. If the land is not adapted to beet culture, it would seem 
better to abandon that crop for a more profitable one; if their 
methods are at fault, the growers should be instructed by the fac- 
tory field men. 
To analyze data of this character and to indicate the causes of 
deficiency in stands of sugar beets, with the accompanying losses, 
are almost tantamount to pointing the way to an avoidance of such 
losses. 
GERMINATION LOSSES. 
The average loss of stand caused by imperfect germination was 
19.31 per cent (Table II, column 5), which was due largely to the 
poor preparation of the seed bed. In the first place, it was noted 
that fall plowing is seldom practiced and that it is rarely deep enough. 
One serious result of shallow plowing, early apparent in beet culture, 
is that weed seeds remain so near the surface that they are enabled 
