248 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
plants, thinned out from the places where the lines are too 
close, are made use of. Another object of replanting is to 
preserve a regular distance of twent-five to thirty centimeters 
between the plants, with the drills from sixty-five to seventy- 
five centimeters apart. From 46,000 to 53,000 plants (with¬ 
out counting failures,) having an average weight of eight 
hundred grams each, can be grown per hectare, a total from 
thirty-two to forty tons. 
In average years the crop raised on good soils in the Aisne, 
Oise, and Ardennes departments, where there are a great num¬ 
ber of sugar factories and distilleries, amounts to from thirty 
to forty tons per hectare. 
Cultivation in mils. —This system of cultivation is fast su¬ 
perseding the older methods, as much more abundant crops 
can in this way be produced, some growers succeeding in ob¬ 
taining sixty tons of roots per hectare, where under the old 
system from thirty-five to forty tons only were raised. This 
method of cultivation requires much more care and labor than 
cultivation in drills, but the roots produced are much more 
dense and rich in sugar. 
The soil is thrown either with a cpmmon or double plow 
into two bands or furrows, one against the other; soil so pre¬ 
pared presents conditions more favorable* for development of 
the^rootsin length and density, and at the same time diminish¬ 
es the size of the collar, which portion of the beet contains the 
smallest amount of sugar. Plowing and manuring are done as 
in the other method of cultivation, with the exception that the 
manure is buried in the middle of the hills, where, from greater 
contact with the air, it more readily decomposes. 
With heavy soils it will be found convenient to prepare the 
hills in the fall, so that the soil by contact with the air and 
winter frosts may be rendered more porous and friable. As 
the hills, so prepared, settle a little, it will be necessary before 
planting to run the double plow between the furrows. Where 
fields are not manured until spring, the hills should be formed 
as early as March, the ground being first harrowed, then 
ploughed, then relied with a heavy roller. The hills are made 
