Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-26
How to Prepare the Ground fol
Sugar Heets.

Sugar Heets.
The Spreckels Company has prepared
the following directions for planting and
growing sugar beets:
Preparation of the ground -Instruc-
tions for this purpose may be briefly
summarized as follows: Plow the soil
from ten to twelve inches deep very early
in the spring, and it is better to do this
twice than once. This can best be done
by two successive plowings with an or
dinary plow. A rich soil should be
plowed few inches deeper (say fourteen
inches deep than a mere fiat soil with
poor subsoil. The plowing should be
followed by passing heavy iron-toothed
harrow over the ground in order to
pulverize the soil as much as possible.
An iron roller must be passed over the
ground so as to equalize the surface and
break the clods, when the soil is of such
a character as to render this necessary
Sowing the Seed.-The seed should be
sown early in the month of March. Be-
fore sowing it must be soaked in water
| for twelve hours, but the water should be
allowed to drain off before the seed is
used. 1t should be buried at depth oi
from one to one and half inches, out in
very rich soil, not deeper than one inch
The rows must be from twelve to fifteen
inches apart from each other, according
to the quality of the soil. In the row the
distance between each beet varies from
six to eight inches. A lesser distance be-
tween the beets gives small and sweet
beets, which are difficult to preserve
One acre requires six pounds of sugar
beet seed.
Hoeing and Heaping.-As soon as the
seed is growing up, which takes from ter
to fourteen days in wet soil, and severa
weeks in a dry soil, the first hoeing Of
heaping should begin. The second hoe
ing follows the thinning out of tht
beets, and the last hoeing occurs some
four weeks later. When the rows are
visible horse-hoe is run lightly across
the fields between the rows, and thi
would be difficult if the regularity of th,
rows we're imperfect. One horse bo,
with two hoes will work about thre,
acres every day.
Thinning.-The thinning out of th,
bets in a row should begin when tn
beet root arrives at the thickness of one
sixth of an inch; then all the beets ex
cept the largest, which are placed 81,
inches apart from each other in the row
are removed. If they are grown to-
wide apart on good land, the beet root
grow larger but are poor in sugar. Oh
the other hand, if they are planted to-
close to each other the roots are rich il
sugar but remain small. In either cas-,
the value of the roots is less than whel
both extremes are avoided. Beets tha
are too small are very difficult to pre-
serve, and those that are too large los,
in sugar. One row in each acre shoult
be left untouched, or only thinned, il
case of any injury to the crop. This row
is held as reserve until the beet roo
becomes one-half an inch thick, whel
all danger is at an end.
Transplanting Should it be necessar,
to transplant beets from the row reserved
this should be done with wooden borer
great care being taken not to iDjure tn,
young roots when taking them up ant
transplanting them. This last operation
is often performed by means of a trans
planter, an instrument specially made
for this purpose. CLAUS SPRECKELs,
President