Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1907-03-22
THE FARMERS INSTITUTE.
A Very Interesting Meeting With a
Fairly Good Attendance.

The farmers institute meeting held
IN the court house Thursday was
attended by fairly large crowd of
people, and The subjects taken up
were OF great interest to our seople
at this particular time.
Mr.. S H. Gwinn was made chair
man of the meeting. and Prof. Miller.
Of the State Agricultural College
talked for short time on the ad
vantages Of the contests to be held
by the various counties in which or
CARNATIONS have been made, in an eff
fort to interest theyounger people in
The better ways of farming. After
talking along these lines for a short
time, Prof. Miller gave way to Mr..
Buftam, Of Garden City. who had for
his subject sugar beets.
Mr.. Bufum talked in very inter.
eStlng manner for some little time on
the necessity of getting started in the
right way. He said that it would be
Unnecessary to get the factory people
and capitalists interested in this part
ofthe country before we could hope
to have a sugar factory here, and
that the best way to do this was to
take small area, even one.fourth or
one half acre Of ground, and demon.
strate to the factory people that we
could raise, sugar beets, and raise
them In large enough quantities to
make it interesting for them if they
would build a factory.
In speaking of the preparation nee
essary to the planting of sugar beets,
Mr.. Buffum recommended fall plow.
ing and deep..plowing. Six or eight
inches is not deep enough. Go down
twelve or fourteen inches, and then
you have your ground in shape to
catch and hold the moisture that falls
during the winter. In the spring,
either pillow again, or, at least, work
the land over good with a disc. max.
ing your seed bed as file as possible.
He said il, took more work and better
attention to what youIwere dong than
any other class Of farming, but the
profits were also better, and that il
was the man who attended to the
work, and saw that it was done, who
got the big end of the bargain after
the seasons work was ended and the
books balanced.
After talking for some time, Mr.,
Buffum announced that he would like
to have those who were interested ask
him questions in regard to the cult.
walton and raising of the beets. In
the course of the questioning,l:among
other things, the followiug!interesting
facts We're brought out:
The beets are planted with "a drill,
and the average amount OF seed to
the acre is about twenty pounds. AT.
ter the beets come up and send out
two or three leaves, they are gone
over with hoe and chopped out or
punched" as the sugar people ,csll
it. That is that in the rows, which
are about eighteen inches apart, the
beetS are cut with a hoe into punches
about eight inches apart. After this
has been done, they :are gone over
again and all Of the young beets ex.
cept one are..puIled out Of this bunch,
leaving only the best ;and strongest
one alone. : From that time on the
work is in keeping the soil we'll
worked over and the..weeds down and
out Mr. ,Bufumisaid that the rows
should not be more than eighteen
inches apart, as the best tests for
sugar were.gotten from the beets near
the middle of,the fields, while those
around the,.Outside, where they were
not so close together showed less
sugar.
Irrigation is not at all necessary to
the cultivation of sugar beets, and
rain does not affect the sugar in a
beet after it is made, if they are pro
perry cultivated. The, average test
of the beets at Garden City for sugar
was IA per cent, while the amount
lraou,ral - has1,aE.akIo. - -