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32 BULLETIN 963, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
by loose dirt thrown in a ridge between the rows, especially where 
double-row thinning is practiced. These two operations are shown 
separately in the tables. 
Tt will be seen that in the Lehi and Garland districts rolling after 
planting is much more important than rolling before planting. In the 
Idaho Falls area, where the soil type is lighter, about the same per- 
-centage of beet acreage was rolled before planting as after. In the 
Twin Falls area more rolling was done before planting than after. 
The most common crew for this operation consisted of one man and 
two horses. Rolling is usually done at the rate of 8 to 12 acres 
per day. 
DITCHING, 
A certain amount of ditching must be done annually on an irrigated 
farm. This may include work on the lateral which carries water 
from the main canal to the farm proper, or it may involve the re- 
moval of silt or other débris from the distributing lateral, or the 
building of temporary laterals. Whatever work is done should be 
divided equally among those enterprises with which the operation 
is directly chargeable. Sugar beets should bear a fair proportion of 
this cost. 
This cleaning does not require much time; consequently, the total 
charge is small. In some cases the operation includes both man and 
horse labor. In others the work involves hand labor only. Fre- 
quently a plow may be used to advantage in removing the accumu- 
lated silt from the bottom of the lateral. A V-shaped machine is 
sometimes substituted for or used after the plow. The ditching is 
usually done immediately preceding a run of water. 
In getting estimates on ditching practice only such work as the 
operator apphed directly to the beet crop was entered in the record. 
These data were tabulated in two classes, the first comprising figures 
from those farms where man labor only was involved, the second 
figures from farms using both man and horse labor. Some growers 
did a part of the ditching with man and horse labor and completed 
the operation with hand labor only. 
In the Lehi district ditching was done on 63 per cent of the acreage 
with man and horse labor. Man labor alone was applied to 97 per 
cent of the acreage. In the Garland district both classes of work 
apply to practically all of the beet acreage. In Idaho Falls 53 per 
cent of the acreage was included under ditching where man and 
horse labor were used, while 91 per cent of the acreage included 
man labor only. Man and horse labor for ditching in the Twin 
Falls district constituted a minor item. 
