BEET FOR SUGAR

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 7

BEET FOR SUGAR

EXPERIMENTS RECOMMENDED IN ULSTER. (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, 21st May. The growing of sugar beet as a new Ulster industry is dealt with in the i concluding report 'of the Commission appointed to inquire into the natural and industrial resources of Northern Ireland. The Commission report that experiments conducted in various parts of Ireland established the fact that sugar beet can be grown ia Ireland with results equally satisfactory in point of yield aud sugar content to those obtained in most of the recognised beet-growing countries of the Continent, but it is pointed -out that the results of these tests should not be regarded as conclusive proof that the crop, if grown in the ordinary way, would assure equally satisfactory results. Notwithstanding it is stated that there " appears to be ample reason to believe that once the necessary experience is acquired, it could be grown as successfully as on the Continent or in England. But it is pointed out that the introduction of the industry into Northern Ireland could not increase the acreage under tillage, and it would simply mean substituting one root crop for another, and after full consideration of all the details—costs based on the rates of the subsidy at present being granted by the Imperial Government, cost of factory, returns to the farmed—compared with the potato crop, the Commission has unanimously recommended to the Government that the question of providing a State subsidy to permit of the establishment of the industry should be postponed for a period of two years. It is further recommended that the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to test the suitability of soil and climate for the production of the crop on a commercial scale, should be authorised to arrange for the growing of a limited acreage of sugar beet in various districts, purchase the beet thus grown at the price paid by the factories in Great Britain, and dispose of it to either an English or Scottish factory. In.this way reliable data will be procured, and farmers will have an opportunity of forming their own judg-' ment on the suitability of sugar beet as a substitute for other root crops.