The Churchill county standard. (Fallon, Nev.) 1908-1920, 1910-10-20
bur SUGAR
BEET LANDS
lUR PROSPECTS DESCRIBED
1homss H Means Deals in an Interesting
Manner With Sugar Producing
Prospects Of This
Valley.


Nevada Sugar Company, has received
number of pamphlets from Symmes
Il Means, descriptive of the Truekee-
arson irrigation projects sugar beet
resources. The report is from the pen
n Mr.. Means, who treats of the beet
rrowing possibilities in his usual COM
prehensive style. He tells of the
ayailable acreage for beet growing
within this valley, which he estimates
2at 45, 900 acres, assuming that it Is
Sprofitable to haul beets only four miles
Eior shipment by rail. Mr.. Means ar
tcle sheds new light upon the events
Ethat lead up to our present factory.
4 He tells how the experiments were con-
zducted from the date of his first resi-
Edence here up to the time the HINES
were attracted by the remarkable tests
made possible by unselfish work on the
part Of project farmers. In the fall Of
1904, County Recorder G. w. Likes, of
this place, w. II. Sifford and c. =.
Cirac, of Saltwater, had experimental
and the results of their work was quite
as conclusive as the later day tests.
The following is from Mr.. Means
report:
"When the writer first permanently
ocated on the Truckee- Carson project
in 1906, he realized the advantages
which the country possessed for grow
ing sugar beets. Seed was secured
from the Department of Agriculture
and distributed among the farmers
that season. This practice was kept
up every season while he was on the
project During the four years COM
mencing with 1906, sugar beets were
grown in all varieties of soil on the
project. 1t was always difficult to get
farmers to take care of an expert
mental plot Of beets in the proper
manner, and for that reason we have
very few results showing tonnage of
beets grown. As rule, the beets
planted were limited to a row or two
in the farmers vegetable garden and
they received only such care as was
Incidental to his larger farming opera
tons. In spite of these difficulties,
without exception the beets have
shown high sugar content and I'M
usually good purity coeiiieient.
Records of beets grown in 1906 have
been lost, though from the writer's
memory of them none of the samples
showed less than 14qt sugar
or 500 purity.
In 1907, beet seed was distributed
and was planted by the Department of
Agriculture in the Experiment Farm
south of town. The only analyses
available are those from the Ex-
pertinent Farm. The soil used on the
Farm was of poor
it was a heavy clay con-
tanning alkali, a soil which produced
almost nothing when planted to other
crops. Nineteen varieties were planted,
grown and analyzed. The results of
the analyses are published in Bulletin
l57, of the Bureau of Plant Industry.
in the Department of Agriculture.
They show that the average of all the
varieties planted gave 1885, sugar in
beets, 1926 purity.
In 1908, the Experiment Farm again
planted large number of beet varieties.
AT this time two types of land were
used sandy land and clay land. The
following table shows the average
results of the analyses:
Sugar IN Juice sugar in Beet Purity
Sandy lana 1873 1873 SS.9
Clay land 1872 1871 s7.4
Average yield, IL tons per acre.
This experiment is one of the best
records for sugar content and purity
which has ever come to the writer 5
attention.
During 1903, the question of building
a sugar factory was taken up and
beets were grown from the seed
supplied by Henry w. Hinze, now
president of the Nevada Sugar Com
pany. Large numbers of test plots
were put out with farmers on all type'
of the PROJECT. But as usual in suci
cases, it was found almost impossible