AGRICULTURE AND BEET.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 435, 31 January 1912, Page 6

AGRICULTURE AND BEET.

Mr Truman G. Palmer, chairman of the American Beet Sugar Association, recently made the following interesting statement regarding American agriculture in an English paper: — "While occupying but 'ls per cent, of the surface area of the United States, Europe, without Russia, tills double the number of acres of wheat, rye, bariey, oats, and potatoes that we till," he said, "and from that double area devoted to these crops five their farmers harvest four times the number of bushels per acre that our farmers do. Moreover, of these five crops Europe prodcue3 more bushels per capita for their 300,000,000 people than we do for our 90,000,000, while during the past 30 vear3 Europe has increased her acreage yield by 75 per cent, to our 8 per cent. This remarkable economic position is not alone due to more thorough and scientific methods of cultivation, but rather to the introduction of the humble sugar beet, the leaf buds and the roots of "which in the days of Augustus Caesar vtfere used as food for slaves. Any Englishman will admit that it would be more desirable to produce at home the £22,000,000 worth of sugar you annually import from other countries, and turn this vast sum into the pockets of your own instead of foreign farmers and labourers.."