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Show I 1 SUGRR BEETS H PROBLEMS OF BEET CULTURE I HARVESTING. H , . - H By Jegse H. Buffuni in Beet Sugar H - Gazette. m Unquestionably the harvesting of H, his crop is to the beet grower the ' most attractive operation of the scabs' sca-bs' son, for he deals then with definite m results of his year's work. Soon the B reward of his toil will come in the 1 form of the sugar company's check, M which is always forthcoming; and B therein lies one of the chief features m of attractiveness in, the sugar beet ;n 1 dustry the dependable market -and H unvarying pay. B Disappointing and inexplicable as it H surely is, the fact is obvious that no m advancement whatever has been made m In this department of field work, and M wc arc no farther along today than M when the industry was first intro-H intro-H duccd into this country. In this, as M in many other practices of beet cul-M cul-M turc and sugar making, we borrowed M from Europe, yet in almost every m other direction stridal advances have H been made, and American methods m have supplanted the foreign regime, even down to the manufacture and exportation of sugar making machinery. machin-ery. As the result of constant and painstaking endeavor in the United States Department of Agriculture, wc have rapidly approached the superlative super-lative in field methods, particularly in those matters having to do with the perfecting of the beet itself for better American .culture. However, it seems as if neglect only has characterized the harvesting end of the work, for the same crude methods exist today that wcr; in vogue more than a half century ago. But to lament in this direction is profitless, and we have as encouragement encourage-ment the fact that a new era must unquestionably un-questionably dawn and usher in a highly improved system of transferring transfer-ring the beet fronvjthc soil to the factory fac-tory dumps. The contemplation of this theme, moreover, involves a wide range of difficulties as well as opportunities, oppor-tunities, "rind It may be said that rather rath-er more than for the farmer himself, there arc certain problems that have" , to do with the leaders in thought and method, who control practices and formulate schemes. Such a theme is opportune for discussion in the month of September, for harvesting in most of -'life beet sections will soon be under un-der way, and it is far from being too . . -, -. ; -:' 4iV, " , late- tOMilauguratc measurable, im,- . ', i - ,, &' provements during the present sea- . ' p .y- son.., The fact needs no defense that economy is and must cver.bctlfe watchword in the beet sugar industry. Neither capital nor labor has yet come into its own, and the two interests arc so nearly identical that at the harvesting har-vesting -end, at least, they can hanffy be taken up thoughtfully as separate and distinct. There arc matters pertaining per-taining to other phases of field practice prac-tice that directly concern the gr.owcfr alone tfut when it comes to moving the matured crop with facility and dispatch, dis-patch, the interests of. both factory and farmer immediately entwine. For this reason it may be said.Ahat it is of vital interest to the factory managers manag-ers to extend every possible encouragement encour-agement and suggestion to thegrow- v ',f ' , " ' ' "' '- -y$ "st crsi on whom they depend, - looking toyard better methods than now ex-ist. ex-ist. The application of this involves a good .many considerations,, it-is true, and the consideration of them in this connection must prove profitable, as suggestive of improvement, if nothing more. J If the harvesting operation were one of the lesser items of beet culture it would hardly be deserving of the al- j most unlimited attention that it is soon to receive. But this final task j of the beet field is more than twice j- as expensive as any other operation. I It costs approximately eight dollars ' per acre to lift, top and pile sugar j beets; and added to that is the not inconsequential haul to factory. It is ; for this reason that a supreme effort toward economy should be made. both for the grower's benefit and for the sake of the industry at large, for the fact will bear repeating that fa-cility fa-cility in the field means facility in the factory. On the face of it, it is extremely ex-tremely crude to keep a man on his knees at -continuous hand labor ot ! oft-times questionable quality, when j j mechanical means for performing the same work and with greater accept I ance, awaits but the stroke of genius 1 and capital combined. I Improved machinery or new me- chanical devices for beet culture, spell ' 1 revolution in this industry. No one can be found who for a moment 1 doubts this assertion. Successful ma- i chines arc already in operation in L many sections for iblocking the beets; ; and it can almost be said that some I appliances will thin the crop. The perfect or practical achievement of this, however, is impossible, and most of us arc satisfied that this is so; else iu Nineteen Hundred and Umpty 'Stccnth Wc will wake up in the morn and before breakfast press the button, but-ton, that sets in motion cogs and con glomcration, machines .and mystics, which unaided by human skill or driver's dri-ver's touch, will perform all hc operations oper-ations of field work with an exactitude exacti-tude at once pleasing the poetic. One thing, more only will remain, and he will be the genius to invent somic device de-vice that will press the button. But until very recent years the mind of the inventor seems to have been exhausted and his capacity spent before be-fore the harvest field was even in sight, so that we have gome on wielding wield-ing the topping knife, and pulling the beets from the ground with such crude methods as the old. fashioned plow. That does very well for lifting but breakage of beets and those to be released from the soft earth that has oovered them, remains a serious drawback. The present method is to lift the beets in the easiest possible a manner, which is frequently qccom-, I plishedi by means of a modern lifter, J doing very creditable work in some 1 J instances. The beets arc then thrown into piles, after which they arc topped by use of a heavy knife, wielded in one hand while the beet is held in the other. It is often to be noticed that more than one stroke is required to sever the crown of the beet from its root in an acceptable manner. Failure Fail-ure to do this means a frightful lowering low-ering of purity, which develops all too plainly in the juices in the factory. After topping, the beets arc left convenient con-venient to the wagon, and the tops arc likewise disposed of economically. ilt generally costs two dollars per acre to plow the ibects out, and six dollars is the cost of topping, making this the most expensive of any single operation of the season. The very crudity of the present method is all the argument necessary for the improvement im-provement that is so urgent and so eagerly longed for. It would be grass ignorance to hold tbat this need has- not been "'realized. In contradiction to this arc the eighty or more devices that have been pat- cntcd. Most of these arc claims on Jjf lifters, some of which, as has been ad- m mittcd, do creditable work. The cus- ijL torn seems now to be almost hebdo madal for some new scheme to -appear whereby sugar beets may be released from the ground at the rate of numerous num-erous acres per day and at very nominal nomi-nal cost. So it is hardly fair to accuse the sugar manufacturers and factory managers of being slow to espouse the modern machinery idea. I believe that if rightly managed, the introduction introduc-tion of practical mechanical devices into the beet fields, even where such introduction devolves upon the factories, fac-tories, will be only too easy of accomplishment accom-plishment when once such machines can demonstrate on prolonged tests that they will do the work satisfactorily. satisfac-torily. I can speak with considerable conviction along this line, for during recent months much time has been spent by the writer in making thorough thor-ough investigations of several ibect harvesters, and the. unqualified verdict ver-dict must be that not only is the new era of the successful beet harvester about to dawn, but the sugar men themselves will be first to welcome it. The best method whereby this may be accomplished, however, constitutes con-stitutes a question all by itself and it must be left to those in whose keeping keep-ing it is reposed. Of this fact I am convinced, namely, that a practical machine can be produced not to exceed ex-ceed in cost two hundred dollars that will in one operation plow out, lift, top and pile sugar beets at the rate of from three acres to five acres per day, the work not to exceed in cost two dollars per acre, allowing for hire of driver and two team's the sum of six dollars per day. Certainly the present excessive cost of harvesting awaits solution in the introduction of mechanical means for doing the work. Inventive genius and unlimited capital -must soon bring to the harvest field of the beet farmer their combined achievement. For this the whole industry is waiting, though full acknowledgment of this has not been as widely made as we might reasonably rea-sonably expect. It is not easy to forget for-get that from thinning time to harvest har-vest is a wide reach, and during all that time foreign labor must be retained re-tained to perform the one task rightly belonging to the machine. Is it any wonder, then, that in the face of some of these obstacles, to which enough studious attention has not been given, the interests of the industry at times and in places seems to waver? But ''while machinery must revolu- 1 tionize this end of the field work for fl the beet growing farmer, there arc H othci questions of moment that have H their direct relationship to the beet H harvest, and it cannot be otherwise H than profitable to discuss them in H season. H (To be continued next week.) H |