28 
Bulletin 63. 
The dry matter in the beet pulp is of rather more value, pound for pound, 
than the dry matter from the fresh beet. The pulp as obtained from the silo 
contains 90 to 92 per cent, of water. Slight fermentation is said to improve it. 
i 
We have grown beets carrying as high as 19 per cent, of sugar in soil rich 
in “alkali” salts. The average percentages of sugar for the crops of 1898 and 1899, 
grown in such soil, were 13.65 and 15.34 respectively. The coefficients of purity 
were 84.6 and 80.8. 
As a rule medium sized beets are richer than either small or large beets. 
By medium sized beets is meant such as weigh from one to two pounds. Large 
beets, beets weighing from two to four or even many more pounds, may be as rich 
in sugar and have as high a coefficient of purity as beets of one pound or less, if 
grown under the same conditions. If not grown under the same conditions they 
cannot be compared. Even big beets grown under different conditions cannot 
be compared. Two beets, weighing respectively 2.88 and 2.90 pounds, grown in 
the same plot of ground within two hundred feet of one another, but under 
different conditions in regard to water supply, showed 10.45 per cent, sugar, 67.0 
per cent, purity, and 16.06 per cent, sugar and 85.1 purity. Big beets may be 
rich beets, the size alone is not determinative. 
It has been stated that one irrigation may, under certain seasonal condi¬ 
tions, suffice to produce the best results in regard to crop and quality of beets. 
Under other conditions of the season or soil, or both, more irrigations will be 
necessary. The condition of the crop will determine how late in the season irri¬ 
gation may be profitably practiced. If the crop has already begun to ripen either 
a rainfall or an irrigation which causes a second growth will prove detrimental, 
but if the crop is in such condition that a second growth is not produced a 
late irrigation may do good. 
A late over-irrigation ofter does good, hastening the ripening and increasing 
the sugar. It has not been determined that it will uniformly produce this result. 
The character of the soil will probably modify the effect. 
The higher parks of the State are not adapted to this culture, but good 
crops of rich beets have been grown in the San Luis valley at an altitude of 
rather more than seventy-five hundred feet. 
The beet growing almost wholly under ground in this State, the loss in 
trimming is reduced to a minimum. Experiments indicate about 13 per cent, 
loss. 
The amount of sugar in the crown of the beet, as it grows with us, is about 
one per cent, less than there is in the beet. 
The cost of growing and harvesting an acre of beets will, of course, vary, 
but it k not far from thirty dollars per acre, exclusive of ground rent. 
The growing of this crop will be more successful and the cost often 
materially lessened by the exercise of good judgment on the part of the culti¬ 
vator. Specific rules for its culture, applicable to every case, cannot be laid down, 
and it must furthermore be remembered that even the very best rule can be so 
indifferently carried out that it may produce very poor results. No amount of 
experimentation can eliminate the difference between an intelligent, observing 
cultivator and one lacking these characteristics. Some land needs to be treated 
in a manner which would be wholly inapplicable in another case. Men who have 
tilled and irrigated their farm lands for years have learned how to treat each 
separate part of their farms. This knowledge is probably the secret of their 
success. No general statement regarding the culture of beets can be properly 
interpreted without taking these special facts into consideration. 
