Northern Advocate Daily WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE Northern Mail Daily. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1915. SUGAR BEET.

Northern Advocate, 20 July 1915, Page 2

Northern Advocate Daily WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE Northern Mail Daily.

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1915. SUGAR BEET.

REG. STERED FOR TRANSMISSION THKOUGH TEE POST AS A NEWSPAPER

Interest in the. growing of sugar .beet is being revised in the Waikato. For many years past the opinion has prevailed amongst some farmers in that district that beet can be profitably grown in New Zealand. Now the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce has taken the matter up and is suggesting to the various branches of the Farmers' Union ■hat it is advisable to investigate he possibilities of establishing ilie industry. Up to the present time there does not appear to have been any outstanding example of profitable beet-growing in New Zealand, and the industry has met with only a small measure of encouragement notwithstanding persistent, if someivliat intermittent, agitation. Nevertheless, the question of profitably growing sugar beet in this country is well worth investigagation. and the farmers are the right people to set about the task. Where beet can be .successfully grown it isV undoubtedly, a highly profitable crop as experience has shown. A lengthy series of experiments at the South Dakota Experimental Station (United Slates), has shown that by carefid selection of seeds a beet can be grown giving a sugar content of 25.4 per cent. This result, however, was not achieved without long and patient study and experiment and the careful selection of ■'mother plants.' , A. Mr James 11. Shepard, a chemist of that State, made the production of sugar beet his particular hobby and he received considerable, assistance from the Oovernnient in his work. For several years the Avliole of Dakota State was tested, seeds being sent to 9 f>4 farmers in f>o counties. From 1897 to 1011 the Government co-operated with Mr Shepard and in 1912 ho continued independently to experiment. Tests were undertaken to produce sugar beet on a commercial basis —for what good was a high per cent, beet if it remained merely a laboratory product? It must be commercialised and given to the people. The beets of tile 1912 season yielded as high as 24 lons to the acre, with a sugar content of 2f>.4 per cent. They grew- uniformly and true to '.\ i*e. and good for an average of 20 per cent sugar. Pro.iVs.sor Shcpard believes that he has now grown enough "mother" beets to put the sugar beet busi-

ness oil <v' satV commercial basis in South Dakota in two years. We cannot follow ]\i'r Shepard tiiroiig'h his long , series of experiments but sumniari.xed bristly, the work of the South Dakota .ESxpprimentaJ St-tr lion has developed n sugar beet yielding from one-tSfth to onefourth its weight in sugar, and more than 20 tons to thn acre— without irrigation and without artificial fertilisation. In order

to produce an equal value of : wheat the Dakota farmer would have to get his land to yield the impossible crop of 140 bushels to the acre. The 1912 beet crop of the South Dakota Station ran si uniformly and true to type that the rejected beet averaged a higher analysis of sugar than that reported for the regular commercial l)eet crop of the l.'nited States. The average tonnage in the United States in a n-eont report was less than 11

tons an acre, with a sugar content under 16 per cent. Furthermore, no Dakota experimental test crop has ever failed. The writer recording these experiments says:—-"South Dakota ftwiners arc now waiting the factories which are planned at various convenient shipping centres. They feel confident that sugar beet raising should do for their State what it has done for other States. The beet is a subsoiler by .nature. The South Dakota experimenters dug. round and under an exceptionally healthy beet, and found roots 8 feet below the surface. Visions of new wealth and prosperity to Dakotans now appear in the prospects for added population in labourers, increased soil fertility, increased feeding of stock with waste products from beet sugar mills, profitable by-production as well as sugar production, beet seed raising, and last, but not least, an increase in the value of land." The present high prices ot sugar indicate the demand there-"must be for the product. The industry may some day open up a new vista of prosperity for our Sunny North.