NEw York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 289 
well justified. Though experiments have shown that as good 
beets and as heavy yields can be grown in New York as in the 
West, and though the State has encouraged the industry by paying 
a good ton bounty, culture of the crop is not extending rapidly, if 
at all; and only one factory remains in operation. Potatoes, cab- 
bage, garden vegetables and well established special crops like 
peppermint, broom corn, hops, tobacco and celery give such certain 
returns or such larger profits under favorable conditions that sugar 
beets have been unable to displace them except in a restricted area. 
The work of the Station on its own grounds, either independently 
or in cooperation with the United States Department of Agricul- 
ture, and on outside farms in cooperation with their owners, has 
shown that sugar beets are well adapted to New York conditions; 
and if properly managed, a reliable money crop. Indeed, for sev- 
eral years, the Station farm gave a larger amount of sugar to the 
acre than any other reported in cooperative experiments with the 
Department at Washington. The experiments of the first year 
were preliminary. They showed plainly that large crops of beets 
of good quality could be grown on the Station farm, and indicated 
that the use of about I,000 pounds to the acre of a good complete 
fertilizer would be profitable. 
During the next season, cooperative experiments were carried 
on with about twenty farmers in different localities, and analyses 
were made of large numbers of beets grown by other farmers. 
Many useful hints were obtained from this work, which were pub- 
lished in Bulletin No. 155.% In tests made by the Station at 
Geneva and at Fayetteville the use of a small amount of good, 
complete fertilizer was found profitable, but large quantities gave 
less satisfactory returns. When more than 1,500 pounds was used 
the gain in sugar was worth less than the cost of the fertilizer to 
produce it. Farmyard manure was also used this year and gave 
good results, though it was not profitable, counting the single sea- 
son only, in the quantity used, twenty tons to the acre. Contrary 
to the general teaching, the use of the manure did not injure but 
improved the quality of the beets. | 
To test more thoroughly the influence of manure on beets, the 
trials with it were continued three years more. The results, as 
reported in Bulletin 205,°' show the manure as good, if not better 
than commercial fertilizer for growing beets. 
°Same, Rpt. 17:430-457 (1808). 
* Same, Rpt. 20:223-235 (IgoI). 
IO 
