When the beets are up and show the third leaf they should be “thinned.”
Unless thinned at the proper time the pulling up of the superfluous
beetlets injures the roots of the remaining ones. Scientific
experiments in Germany, where all other conditions were identical,
showed that one acre thinned at the proper time yielded 15 tons; the
next acre, thinned a week later, yielded 13¹⁄₂ tons; the third acre,
thinned still a week later, yielded 10¹⁄₂ tons; and the fourth acre,
thinned three weeks after the first, yielded 7¹⁄₂ tons.
The men in the foreground are “blocking” the beets, leaving a bunch of
them every eight inches. Those in the rear are “thinning,” or pulling
up the superfluous beetlets, leaving one in a place, eight inches
apart.]
[Illustration: READY FOR THE HARVEST.
This field of beets yielded 20 tons to the acre. Ex-Secretary of
Agriculture James Wilson is convinced that when American farmers become
expert in beet culture they will average to produce more than 20 tons
per acre because of the superiority of our soils. The ideal factory
beet weighs about two pounds, and a perfect “stand” of such beets, one
every eight inches, in rows eighteen inches apart, would yield 43¹⁄₃
tons per acre. The present average yield in the United States is about
10 tons per acre, while the hitherto “worn-out soils” of Germany yield
14 tons per acre, or 40% more than is secured from our “virgin soils.”]
[Illustration: HUGE BINS TO HOLD THE BEETS AT FACTORY