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Show "SUGRR B&ETS PROBLEMS OF BEET CULTURE SILOING. By Jesse H. Buffum. (Continued fronirpagc 11.) lunate pulling, as sugar content may not be as high on one day as it would be a few days later. Siloing gives thc grower ample opportunity to add his judgment to that of thc field men, and he can harvest at his leisure. His beets remaining in thc ground will not suffer save in event of rain. Siloing will be one of thc agents through which thc growers will be taught independence. Today many arc dependent upon liens given on their crop to sustain them through thc growing season. 'This compromising compro-mising of one's independence is pernicious, per-nicious, and to sec it fast done away with should be one of thc ambitions of this industry. To be able to hold his beets until such time as they can best be delivered is a worthy objective, objec-tive, and factories and growers alike should contribute to this end. Thc grower is going to receive proportionate propor-tionate remuneration for siloed beets, realizing good interest on his investment: invest-ment: Today thc factories pay more for such beets, allowing all thc way from 20 to So cents per ton in com-pcnsationMor com-pcnsationMor thc extra work. Thc factories have given a great deal of attention! to this problem and to them is due much' credit for thc results re-sults already attained. "It is possible that eventually it will be up to them ' to propose some practical solution that may be practiced on an unlimited scale. I hove thought that a partial remedy might lie in making thc silos contiguous to thc factory, inasmuch as thc farmer must handle his beets one way or another in the field, why not make thc haul as usual, only placing plac-ing thc load in a specially built silo instead of the receiving bins? Thc factories are already standing for much of thc additional expense, and possibly this plan would involve no more outlay on their part than that now in practice. The Fort Collins experiment, which was quite exhaustive exhaus-tive and of great practical value, . shows that thc best way to plan silos is to have them very long and narrow. Some arrangement might be made for connecting these with the (lumc conveyors to thc washer. wash-er. Wy this plan thc farmer would handle his beets but once as usual, would not suffer through any of thc channels suggested above, and especially espe-cially need not be delayed in any field operations he may wish to con- j duct immediately following harvest. (i Thus the burden borne by thc sugar company in sharing thc loss of siloing would become embodied in storage : bins of special type, so constructed ' that they will largely take thc place of thc present factory dump. One factory with which thc writer j is familiar erected an expensive dump or set of bins costing nearly fifty thousand dollars, 200 yards long, into ! which could be dumped 50,000 tons of beets at one time. An approximate t of this was tried, with thc result that disintegration set in and a vast volume vol-ume of decayed beets fouled thc pro- cess from beginning to end, clogging up presses and filters and causing a , rare stink never to be forgotten. Though serious inversion of sugars took place, thc mess had to be worked up so as not to be a total loss. Now that factory will not permit an excess of io.ooo tons of beets to be on hand in thc sheds at one time. Thc above was one attempt to solve thc silo problem, but it did not work. During thc year 1906 thc Great Western Sugar Company introduced " to its growers a new two-clause contract, con-tract, giving thc farmer an option of cither (1) delivering his beets as soon as harvested and receiving a flat rate for thc same of $4.75 or (2) silo one-fourth one-fourth of his crop and deliver thc rest as soon as harvested. For the part 1 delivered immediately he would re- 1 ceivc $5 per ton, and for the part I siloed and delivered in the winter H $5.50 per ton flat. This shows that . thc factory men arc shouldering their share of thc burden. It is a misnomer misnom-er to speak of "overproduction," as there is no such thing. Mtorc "beets than thc factory can receive at any one time should be regarded as but normal production, in which the silo plays as fundamental a part as breath in the human body. Under present day metho.ds, the farmer can save considerable handling by adopting thc plan of siloing a part H of each field and hauling a part. Thus H instead of rchandling his beets when H throwing into ricks, piles or winrows, H those lying too far away to be con- W venicntly thrown by the worker B should be loaded into wagons and H carted away, necessitating but one B handling for cither disposition. B Until some better system of siloing B is hit upon, the grower will do well jf to experiment with the wet method B of covering. An ideal style would be 9t a drop silo, where an excavation of M moderate depth is made, into which the beets arc dumped and then cov- M crcd. The layer of earth lying next B to the beets or the beets themselves B may be moistened with water applied B sparingly .but thoroughly. It is the K theory that very dry soil in contact H with the beets, or soil that will soon B dry out, absorbs a great deal of the m moisture from the beets. If this is H true, then the wet -earth will preclude m that possibility. The experiment has B been successfully tried on a consider B able scale at the Colorado Expcri- B ment Station. The results of thi3 B general experiment conducted at Fort B Collins is given herewith, as it con- B tains valuable facts relative to our m theme: "Four different kinds of silos wcrs made. Ther.c were two small silos, containing 3,875 pounds and 4,065 pounds. Previous to covering the beets in the first silo the ground was fairly well moistened with water. The object sought was to prevent the dry earth from taking the moisture from the beets. "The result was: The wet silo was weighed in at 3,875 pounds, weighed out at 3,795, the loss being 80 pounds, or 41.3 pounds per ton. The dry silo, which was weighed in at 4,065 pounds, weighed out at 3,650; loss 415 pounds, or 204 pounds per ton. "Another but larger conical pile was made, the beets weighing in at 7,360 pounds and weighing out at 7,025 pounds, the loss being 335 pounds, or 93 pounds per ton. x "A long silo, such as is usually made by the farmers, weighed in at 10,994 pounds and out at 10,075 pounds, showing a loss of 919 pounds, or 157.18 pounds per ton." o |