SUGAR BEET.

Patea Mail, 17 May 1881, Page 3

SUGAR BEET.

Mr MTvor, agricultural lecturer from Victoria, at a meeting of farmers in Waikato said—Your land would produce sugar-beet in great quantity. First of all, sugar-land is not rank, and rankness, or richness, in the soil is repugnant to the production of good sugar and beet. In the second place, potash is a very important substance, particularly important to a crop like beet, and yonr soil contains abundance of it. In the third place, so far as I can judge of your climate, from what I have read and seen, it is very suitable for the growth of beet. Considering that your Government is holding out inducements for the establishment of beet-sugar manufactories in the colony, 1 think it is the duty of capitalists, of those who intend to invest their money in the manufacture of beet-root sugar, to offer some inducements to New Zealand farmers to have the beet-root growing capabilities of the soil thoroughly tested. You are all aware that beet-root sugar growing is a large industry in France, where it affords employment to tens of thousands of people, and it it is estimated that an acre of land in beet-root—well cultivated land—yields something like two tons of sugar per acre. That is about an average statement for the beet-root plantations in France. If you remember particularly that beet-root sugar can be grown without yonr soil suffering any deterioration, any loss of fertility, provided you restore that portion of the waste you take away, either in the shape of giving it to your pigs—for it is very good food—but, at all events, restore the waste, the refuse of your manufactory to your land, and you can go on growing beet-root to all eternity without your soil suffering any deterioration in quality.