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 TO THE CANADIAN FARMERS. 
 
 NOT E8 
 
 ON 
 
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 BEET-fiOOT SUGAR 
 
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 H. r.inGRXJ, Ji\ 
 
 MONTREAL: 
 Lons PKRRAUi/r & Co., Pkintkrs. 
 No. 87. St. .TauR's Htroet. 
 
 1881 
 
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To the Canadian Farmers %vho have sioned beet-root 
 sugar contracts zci/h Mr. J. A. Lavallec or 
 '' L'Union Sucrikre Fkanco-Canadienne." 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 To fulfill the promise which I have made to 
 some of you, I have condensed, as clearly as possible, 
 the best method of cultivating the beet-root sugar, 
 being convinced of its utility, and remaining however 
 always at your disposal for all additional details you 
 may require. 
 
 You will please, while looking it over, excuse my 
 inexperience of the nature of your soil and of your 
 climate. 
 
 Accept, Gentlemen, the expression of my best 
 feelings. 
 
 II. LEGRU, Jr. 
 
 Paris, ist March i8Si. 
 
 58635 
 
Conditions of culture contained in the beet-root sugar 
 contracts. 
 
 Use only seed delivered by manufacturers. 
 
 Sow only in lands of good quality, excluding 
 marshy or newly cleared land and prairies. 
 
 The land for beet-root should not be manured 
 for the crop. This must have been done for the pre- 
 ceeding crop. 
 
 Do not use manure that may be hurtful to the 
 quality of the beet. No pastures or broken lands. — 
 Phosphates and Superphosphates of Lime so common 
 in your country are strongly recommended. 
 
 Rows should be eighteen inches apart and the 
 beets in line six inches apart. 
 
 Do not strip off the leaves of the beet when pull- 
 ing it up. 
 
 Do not bruise the beet when pulling it up and de- 
 liver it clear and free of leaves. 
 
 At first, just enough beets should be pulled to 
 supply the factory. The balance of crop should be 
 fully ripened before being pulled. 
 
CULTUKE OF BEET-EOOT. 
 
 PLOUGHING UP THE STUBBLE. 
 
 I presume that the prccceding crop shall almost 
 always have been one of grain, wheat for instance, for 
 which the land shall have been manured. 
 
 As soon as the harvest will have been ended, 
 work twice the soil with an extirpator both lenght and 
 cross-ways so as to have it well jDrepared and the bad 
 weeds entirely extracted. After this operation and 
 according to the weather you should harrow the land 
 and roil it in order to raise the parasite plants, whose 
 seeds have remained in the soil and which winter 
 ploughing causes to disappear. 
 
 PLOUGHING. 
 
 .After having dug up the stubble, proceed to the 
 ploughing of your lands. It is important that the first 
 ]3loughing should be made as deep as possible, without 
 however, brin2:ino: too much new land to the surface. 
 
 In France, this work is made often at 14 and 15 
 inches and sometimes as much as 18 inches in depth. 
 
 It is necessary that this ploughing should be done 
 before winter. We remark that after the thaw, lands 
 ploughed in these conditions become very light and 
 
that ill a same piece of land one wliich is ploughed 
 before winter gives a more abundant harvest than one 
 which is i)loughcd after the frosts. 
 
 As soon as thaw sets in, you must proceed to the 
 final preparation of the soil by passing the trycicle in 
 both directions, several times ifnecessary, and above all 
 being careful, in general, to avoitl working land wheti 
 wet, and as a rule not to trample over it when in this 
 state, either by dressing or carting. Therefore, ihe 
 soil should be ploughed and dressed only when suffi- 
 ciently dried up. Rolling is then useful. 
 
 In fact, when the soil is dressed in wet weather, 
 it becomes too compact, and as soon as dry weather 
 sets in, it hardens, splits and docs not heat up under 
 the influence of the sun. The beet-root not beinsjj able 
 to strike root in such a land becomes woody and rises 
 out of the ground. 
 
 Light soils are ploughed after heavy lands : and 
 the dryer they are when ploughed the fresher they 
 will be during summer. 
 
 ROLLING. 
 
 A good rolling, made when weather permits, pre- 
 ceeds the sowing of beet root, which must be also 
 followed by a second rolling. By the first of those 
 operations the land is pressed, becomes less permeable 
 to air and does not dry so easily ; By the second rol- 
 ling which is the most important and which must 
 sometimes be repeated once or twice, the land is pressed 
 around the seed which is thus in a more favorable 
 
(i 
 
 condition for germination than if it was not in Imme- 
 diate contact with the soil. 
 
 It is very important that these rollings should be 
 made only when the soil is sufficiently dry, otherwise 
 the result will be to harden the soil, and the seed is 
 burried in a compact mass impevious to the air and to 
 the heat of the sun ; as a consequence the seed will 
 sprout with difficulty, and if itdevelopes itself it winds 
 round unable to break through the crest which covers 
 it and ultimately it is destroyed. 
 
 SOWING. 
 
 You must commence sowing your beet-roots as 
 soon as you have no reason to fear bad weather and 
 as soon as the soil is sufficiently dry. The work must 
 be done as soon as possible, so as to allow the beet to 
 remain in the ground as long as possible, a point 
 which is very important in regard to the yielding of 
 the crop 
 
 The seed must be sown in such a wav that it will 
 only be covered by a thin layer of land about \ an inch, 
 according as the land is wet or dry. You must use 
 from thirteen to fifteen pounds of beet-root seed to 
 the acre so as to have a quicker and surer crop. In 
 this way, there still remain beet-root plants to make 
 up the deficiency in case of destruction by insects. By 
 using a large enough quantity of beet-root seed, you 
 advance the rising of the seed of several days and con- 
 sequently the first dressing which influences conside- 
 rably the weight of the crop of beets to the acre. 
 
FIRST DRESSING. 
 
 As soon as the boct roots have well risen, and 
 that you begin to see the lines you should make a 
 first dressing cither b}' hand or by a horse-hoe the 
 result of this operation is that it mellows the land and 
 allows it to be heated by the first rays of the sun. 
 
 THE PLACING OF THE BEET ROOT. 
 
 After the first dressing, proceed to the placing 
 of the beet-root. To do this placing you divide the 
 lines which are i8 inches apart into bunches separated 
 from each other by six inches by means of a raze, 
 taking good care to operate across the lines. In Eu- 
 rope, this work and the dressings are done mostly by 
 women and children. 
 
 SINGLEING OR THINNING. 
 
 Immediately after the placing of the beet-root 
 you proceed thinning them, an operation which con- 
 sists in leaving only the best root in each bunch. To do 
 this, with your left hand you hold the plant you desire 
 to keep so as not to shake or unroot it, while with 
 your right hand you pluck away all the other roots 
 which must be taken away. 
 
 This thinning of the beet-root must commence 
 when the plants have two leaves. At this moment 
 
8 
 
 beet-roots are still tvcak but this operation should be 
 done as soon as possible, as the remaining stocks are 
 the only ones which derive any advantage from the 
 manure, they soon regain the strength which is neces- 
 sary to protect them from dry weather and late frosts, 
 and by this means you obtain the greatest possible 
 weight of beet-roots. 
 
 SECOND AND THIRD DRESSING. 
 
 Immediately after the thinning of the plants and 
 as soon as the weather will permit it, you must give 
 the land a second dressing which is done by means of 
 the horse-hoe between the lines, and by means of the 
 raze between the plants. 
 
 The third dressing is given according to the 
 growth of bad weeds ; it must be done with care so 
 as to not break the leaves of the beet-root, which 
 would be prejudicial to the growth of the plant. 
 
 Sometimes when the season is very wet a fourth 
 dressms; is necessarv. 
 
 PULLING, 
 
 The pulling of the beet-root is subdivided into 
 two parts. 
 
 The first part, in small c^uantities, as soon as the 
 beet-root is fit for work and in sufficient ciuantities for 
 the feeding of the factory as these beet-roots would 
 not keep. 
 
The second part, as soon as the beet is ripe which 
 is easily seen when the leaves become yellow and 
 drop. Great care should be taken not to pull the 
 bect-rools m large quantities before they have fully 
 matured, as they would be very apt to mouldy in pits 
 as this would be completelv lost. I beq; to lav much 
 stress on this point as one of the most important. 
 
 You may, instead of the spade, which sometimes 
 hurts the beet, make use of a kind of plough without 
 either knife or mould-board or any other implement, 
 provided the beet is not hurt, as this wound would be 
 sure to cause it to rot. 
 
 CLEARING AND UNCOVERING. 
 
 After the ploughing, beet roots should be cleared 
 and uncovered. For that purpose you use a large knife 
 with broad blades and heavy enough, whose sharp 
 edge will cut the neck by a single stroke and whose 
 back will be used to scrape the beet-root. You put 
 the beet-roots into a heap ; all this work can be done 
 either bv women or children. 
 
 It is important that those heaps, as soon as they 
 are made, shold be covered with leaves till they are 
 taken away so as to preserve the beets from the frosts, 
 from the action of the air and sun, which would result 
 in their loosing weight, and would be injurious to 
 their preservation. 
 
 We shall only speak of stripping (jff the leaves 
 of beet-root to mention it, as this mode of ()})eration 
 in every respect is injurious to the plant, both as re- 
 
10 
 
 gard to its weight and specially to its quality. We 
 therefore must most absolutely prohibit, under any 
 pretext whatever, to strip off the leaves of the beets 
 at any period of its growth, or even when it has arrived 
 at full maturity. 
 
 SEPARATION OF BEET-ROOT. 
 
 There is an essential and capital point, on which, 
 to conclude, I would draw the attention to the culti- 
 vation of beet-root, It is the spacing of beet-roots. 
 
 In fact, the closer beet-roots are to each other the 
 less tendency they have of forming roots, the deeper 
 they are in the ground, the more regular is their form, 
 you are thus sure of a good ripening, and as a natural 
 consequence of a better preservation in heap. 
 
 By placing the roots near each other, the beet is 
 heavier, its flesh being of a closer texture, and as a 
 consequence the crop is more abundant though the 
 beet-root has less volume or bulk. 
 
 It was wrong to say in Europe, some few years 
 ago, that beet-roots close to each other would give 
 good results, as regards the weight, only in rich and 
 well improved lands. 
 
 To this objection, which might come to your 
 mind, I answer that the German farmer puts his beet- 
 roots at six inches distance on the line and that the 
 furrows have only but from 12 to 13 inches of sepa- 
 ration between them, and this yields about 65,000 
 plants to the acre. Now, in these conditions of culture 
 it yields generally a minimum of from 12 to i.| tons 
 to the acre according to the years. 
 
11 
 
 We must bear in mind that the quality of the 
 land in Germany is much inferior to tliat of France 
 and the lands are far from being ns rich and as fertile 
 as those of your own country. 
 
 I will also remark that in spite of this inferiority 
 of the land, to a wheat crop succeeds the beet-root 
 harvest, and that the soil which is to carry the beet- 
 root should receive no manure whatever. 
 
 From this, we can easily conclude that this great 
 crop obtained is certainly due to the great quantity of 
 plants to the acre. 
 
 Finally it is proved by science to day that the 
 richer the beet-root is in sugar, the less it has to borrow 
 from the salts of the soil ; tJins in impoverishing less his 
 fieCds, the farmer finds the double advantage of obtain- 
 ing a more successful harvest, coupled with a greater 
 saccharine richness of the plant. 
 
 As a proof in support of the unquestionable effi- 
 cacity of close cultivation of the beet-root, I may again 
 repeat that all the experiments resulting from compe- 
 titions have been conclusive, and that everywhere the 
 greatest weight yielded always corresponded to the 
 closest cultivation of the plants, that is to say the 
 greatest number of plants to the acre. 
 
 Paris, ist March, 1881. 
 
 H. LEGRU, Jr. 
 
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