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Show M4NGEX-WURZELS IN THE SUGAR FIELDS When the Amalgamated Sugar company sent its experts info the beet fields last summer, the diseovciy was made '.hat approximately five per cent of the young plantc were mangel-wurzel:, or, in other words, just plain beets of Nad blood and no ancestry. As a result, the farmers have be?n growing a small percentage of vegetable matenal unfit to pass through the sugar mills, but most serviceable in the feeding of livestock, and now the Amalgamated is accepting these beets at $10 a ton aid !mnnr them back to the growers at $5, which is a most expensive transaction for the company, but a good bargain for the cultivators of tlie foil This mistake is one of the unavoidable afflictions of the w r. When Germany was cut off from the rest of the World by a blockade which told of I he control of the seas by the Union Jack, th- sugar people of the United States s nt a representative to Russia to buy j seed in the fields of fhe southwestern part of that rountrv and the agent of the Amalgamated, presuming he was dealing with rerut-able rerut-able concerns, bought liberally. Either the Russian r.ellers ol beet seed were imposed upon by the growers of seed, or they deliberately deliber-ately mixed the good and the bad. However, the seed proved to be foul and today the Amalgamated is paying the price of Russian trickery. There is a lesson in this cxpicnce. First, the Amalgamated and all other American beet companies should grow their own se.'d. A combined effort should bring good results. Seccnd, the seeds should be tested, and this, we understand, is to be done by hothouse methods. Sugar beet seed culture requires close supervision and carrful attention to detail;, but Americans should be able to gie to the cultivating cul-tivating of the seed the same eficrt that has made the seed business a success in Germany and Kusfid. This is one industry that should be fostered in making the United States independent of other nations in a time of world upset. It I should be fortified by the protecting hand of government. |