The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-03-26

State College and experiment station
are prophetic the day is not far distant
when the prairie states will be known
by their sugar production rather than
by their broad acres Of wheat and oc.
casional crop failures. After a quar-
ter century of patient breeding and
testing of every known variety the
South Dakota experts believe they
have finally produced a strain Of sugar
beets that will yield rs per cent of
their weight in saccharine matter.
South Dakota makes a modest bow
and claims the worlds record for
growing concentrated sweetness. A
recital of this attainment should be
worthy Of interest.
I'm the early eighties, when the two
Dakotas were still one territory, the
soil possibilities of this great district
were unknown. In order to ascertain
what crops could be proftably grown,
the experiment station at Brookings
undertook an extensive series of ex,
periments with numerous crops. Prof.
James H. Shepard, chemist of the
South Dakota Agricultural College and
Experiment Station, chose sugar-beet
culture as his pet hobby. He believed
that sbeets could be bred up as a sure
crop under all conditions of Dakota
climate, and with a high sugar con-
tent.
I'm the first place he wanted pure
seed. But away back in 1888 there
was considerable lack of knowledge
in America concerning beet culture
and, in truth, hardly any one knew
where good seed might be obtained at
any cost. The shipments of seed in
the earliest tests proved to be merely
a species of mangel with a sugar o
tent under 10 per cent. He was unable
to secure genuine seed before 1891.
The crop of that year produced eight
tons of beets an acre, with sugar con
tent ranging from Is to II per cent.
The average sugar content of German
beet crops was at that time reported
to be IA per cent. Beets must unifor-
ly average IL per cent sugar to be a
profitable commercial crop.
For several years the entire state
of South Dakota was tested in sugar
beet growing-in 1897 seed being SEN
to nine hundred fifty-four farmers in
fifty-nine counties. This particular ex-
pertinent demonstrated hat Shepard's
improved beets would yield heavily
over the entire state, and with a uni
formly high sugar percentage. The
average sugar content had by this
time been increased to Is per cent,
with a yield of over twenty tons to the
acre. Many selected beets tested a
sugar content of more than 20 per
cent. These were preserved as
mothers" for growing seed another
season.
'In 1897, 1898 and 1907 to 1911 in
elusive the United States Department
of Agriculture co-operated with the
South Dakota Experiment Station, and
at different times DR.. C. o. Townsend
and Prof. F. A. Pritchard were detailed
to work with Professor Shepard in
making some special experiments. The
suggestions received from these *
perts of the department encouraged
Prof. Shepard in further efforts.
"In 1912 the work was again con.
tinued independently of federal CO.
operation. Tests were now under
taken to produce sugar-beet seed On a
commercial basis-for what good was
a high per eel beet If it remained
merely a laboratory product? 1t must
be commercialized and given to the
people. The beets of the 1912 season
yielded as high as twenty-four tons to
the acre with a sugar content of 25.4
per cent. They grew uniformly and
True " lypC, anu SOOu AOA Gil dVCldSC
of 20 per cent sugar. Prof. Shepard
believes that he has now grown enough
mother" beets to put the sugar-beet
business on a safe commercial basis
in South Dakota in two years.
Zone who is unfamiliar with the care
and patience necessary in such work
has no conception of what these re-
suits mean. Much might be related Of
how Prof. Shepard rejected as high
as 80 per cent of tested beets each
year, and at the same time gradually
lessened the percentage Of the unfit;
how he replanted mother" beets, safe
guarded them from crossbreeding with
inferior strains, and harvested their
seed; how he repeated the cycle dur
ing another two seasons; and how he
improved the varieties so that it was
necessary to reject but 10 per cent in
1912. This extreme care was neces.
sary because he had learned that there
were in the whole country NO pure
strains Of seed among the individuals
Of any variety which would give uni.
form percentages of sugar
Summarized briefly, the work Of the