Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1918-04-19
Your War Garden

| There Is no question but that
sugar will continue to be scarce dur
ing all of the year. Experiments have
| proved the feasibility of producing in
the garden sugar beets and extracting
| from them syrup to be used as
substitute for most ordinary syrups.
No special tools or equipment are re-
quired for either the culture of the
beets or the production of the syrup.
| The method is approved by the United
States government and Iowa State
College, Ames, and should appea1
especially to large families which have
a vacant lot garden as the children
can do much Of the hand labor re-
quired in growing the beets.
The warning is given in advance
that those without experience in grow
ing beets or producing the home made
syrup should not expect too much.
Care must be used in the boiling down
process, and the syrup will be dark IN
color but of good quality. 1t can be
used for all the ordinary uses of COM
mercial syrups. including table uses
and for the making Of candies. In most
ways it Will prove a good substitute
for sugar. A bushel of bcets will pro-
duce from three to five quarts of syrup
and a row of beets 100 feet long will
produce two or more bushels of beets
il Gaze is taken in growing. In addition
to their value for making syrup sugar
beets are the best of all root crops for
animal feed and are especially valuable
for mink cows and chickens.
The seed can be bought in the city
and. is compare lively cheap. Klein's
Wanzleban is the variety most COM
monty planted. The soil is prepared as
for ordinary beets. Special effort
should be made to break UP the soil
fine and take time to kill as many
weeds and weed seeds before the seed
is planted as is possible. Avoid using
fresh manures now bcause too much
fertilizer produces large tops. to the
detriment of the roots.
The seed should be sown in rows, one
inch deep and not too thick. If horse
cultivation or wheel cultivator is to be
used space the rows two or three feet
apart, but if the cultivation is to be by
hand rows can be twelve to eighteen
inches apart, provided the soil is rich.
When the young plants have put out
two leaves. the soil should be broken
up and stirred close to the rows. When
the plants are three or four inches
high the thinning should be begun and
continued from time to time until the
plants stand six to eight inches apart
in the rows. Weeds should be hand
pulled in the rows, and cultivation
should be frequent. A rather long
growing season is required to bring
sugar beets to maturity. so the seed
should be planted at once. Most of the
beet root will be produced above the
soil.
When the hcct= arc pulled cs.t oet
the tops clear down to the roots and
wash the beets in clean water and
scrub them with a brush to remove all
the soil. They then should be sliced
into very thin slices. This can be done
with either a knife or kraut cutter.
A bushel OF beets should be cut into
two bushels of slices. The sliced beets
are then covered with water. A barrel
may be used for this purpose and
after covering the beets the top OF the
barrel or other vessel used eholfld be
covered tightly with several thick
nesses Of canvas, burlap or other thick
cloth to hold in the heat generated.
The sliced beets should be allowed to
soak for an hour. and the barrel
should be asitated frequently without
uncoverins It. This process separates
the sugar in the beets from the pulp
and the sugar is held in suspension in
the water.
The liquor should be carefully
strained thru several thicknesses OF
cheese cloth when it is ready for boil
ing down. The boiling consists in