— 17 — 
acre of beets in about four days, it follows that a given planting can 
be thinned at the rate of one person to each three or four acres. 
10. Variety Tests. 
During the spring of 1898, the Station received from the U. 
S. Department - of Agriculture, the seed of six varieties of sugar 
beets, with the request that they be given special tests Two rows 
of each variety were sown, but, although the seed was sowm at the 
rate of more than forty pounds of seed per acre, the stand was not 
so good as was gotten with the bulk of our beets. The seed of these 
six varieties was sown May 20, with a hand drill, in rows 18 inches 
apart, two rows of each kind, 177 feet long. The plants were 
thinned June 9 to nine inches apart, and the attempt was made to 
fill in the vacancies by transplanting, but nearly all of the trans- 
planted beets died. 
The first samples for testing were taken October 1, and the 
second samples October 22. The rest of the beets were dug Octo- 
ber 26. The figures of analyses in the following table are the actual 
analytical results obtained on the beets three days after they were 
dug, with no allowance for drying out. During these three days, the 
beets had dried out about one-twenty-fifth of their weight. The 
beets were planted in the following order : 
1. Zeringer, grown by Strandes. 
2. Vilmorin’s Improved, grown in Russia. 
3. Kleinwanzlebener, grown by Vilmorin. 
4. Pitschke’s Elite. 
5. Vilmorin’s French, very rich. 
6. Schreiber’s Elite. 
In the following table there has been added by way of com- 
parison : 
7. Average of eighteen rows of Kleinwanzlebener beets sown 
May 13 on the west side of the above varieties. 
8. Average of fifteen rows of Kleinwanzlebener beets, sown 
May 27 on their east side. These last two were sown in rows 24 
inches apart, and the intention was to thin them to six inches in 
the row. 
