Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/311

 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 287

aggerated statements about the produce — some putting it down at forty or fifty tons per acre. He would not deal in such statements at all, but would confine himself to what he conceived to be the minimum that it would be possible to realize. Mr. Baldwin then gave the results of some experiments he had made to asceitain the best position in a rotation of crops wiiich the best crop should occupy. He had grown it after man- gold wurtzel and Swedish turnips, and the result in both cases was un- satisfactory. He grew it on stubble, the preceding crop having been grass, and he found the very best results. On comparing his notes with Mr. Beauchamp's, he found that the best results were always obtained when the crop was grown on soil intermediate between rich and poor, always assuming it to be deeply and skilfully tilled. The opinion of the best growers of sugar beet on the Continent was that the wheat crop was the best to precede it. His own experience showed that a very large re- turn might be expected after lea oats. He had no doubt, also, that if it was grown after wheat, preceded by potatoes, a capital crop would be the result. The crop should be put in about the beginning and not later than the middle of April; and the drills could hardly be made close enough; for, if the plants were large, the percentage of ervstallizable sugar would be small. The roots ought to be about 2^ lb. or 3 lb. each. If the beet crop was put in after lea oats or lea vvlieat, it woidd be necessary to use a ni0(h;rate dressing of farmyard manure — 10 to 12 tons per acre of well- rotted dung would be enough. In the experiments he made, when he used as much as 25 tons, the crop was heavy, but the proportion of crvs- tallizahle su<i;ar was small. Mr! Baldwin recommended every cultivator to procure seed from seedsmen of undoubted character, or to grow his own seed, and to select those plants which produced the greatest quantity of sugar; thus he would increase the sugar-producing qualities of the plants — an increase which he thought might be indefinitely extended. As to the harvesting, be had no experience of the proper mode of storing the beet for manufacturing purposes. On the Continent, they began to store it when the leaf began to turn yellow, and it was put into sunken pits. Mr. Baldwin stored it precisely the same as mangold wurtzel. In connec- tion with this, he had to nieiuion that the sanqde analysed by Mr. Beau- champ, and which induced him to say it was splendid, was sent immedi- ately after the roots were lifted. Later in tlie season, a sample of the same crop was analysed by Di". Voelcker, and he reported that it only contained between 7 and 8 per cent, of crystallizable sugar; and later again another sample of the same crop was examined, but only 5 per cent, could be found in it. These were sanqjies of the very same crop which were analysed by Mr. Beauchamp immediately after being pulled, and found to contain 12 per cent. This clearly proves the necessity of attending to proper storage. Mr. Baldwin dwelt on the advantage of the beet-root as belonging to a family of crops, which, by promoting tillage, liljerated plant food and prepared the ground for other crops. The cultivation of beet-root would cause more land to be l)roughl under tillage, and thus give more employment to the agricultural popidation, besides furnishing a new source of industry. In Ireland a state of things existed unparal- leled in Eiu'ope. Half the land was in pasture, one-fourth in waste and water, and only one-fourth in tillage.

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