The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1877

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 824, 27 September 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1877

Equal and exact justice to all men, Ot whatever state or persuasion, religious o political * # # # # Here shall the Pres<3 the People's right maintain. Unaweil by influence and unbriberi by ga-

There is an inclination—and we are very glad to find it—in the minds of many settlers in Waikato to extend the ordinary operations of cropping so as to include those more profitable products, the'cultivation of which our soil and climate would warrant us in undertaking, and one of these is the growth of silesian or sugar beet. The Legislature of New Zealand has more than once considered the propriety of encouraging this particular industry. It was a pet scheme of Sir Julius Vogel's, and we could well wish to see a couple ot thousand pounds, at the very least, put upon the Estimates, to be given in bonuses, of, say a thousand pounds each, for the two first tons of sugar, the product of separate factories, manufactured in New Zealand from New Zealand grown beet. The money would be well laid out in the interests of the Colony. In recommending the cultivation and manufacture of new products, to the details of which the settler is unused, there is always a certain amount of preliminary difficulty to get uver. Men hesitate to enfer on the cultivation of a crop with the practical details of the growth of which they know little or nothing, and with the possibility that when even they have succeeded in growing it, for want of. further knowledge in its manufacture or the means to carry it out, they may have their productions left useless and waste upon their hands. At the present moment the settlers of the East Coast are entering on (he cultivation of tobacco, and it has only been with much trouble that sufficient combination has been induced to enable them to employ the practical services of Mr Gotch, of Papakura, who is skilled in the cultivation of that plant and its manufacture. In the case of sugar beet, however, there is no such risk, no such difficulty. The cultivation of the sugar beet is the same as that of the ordinary mangold wurtzel, with, which our farmers are all more or less acquainted and experienced in. If it never comes to a question of sugarmaking (but of that hereaftei*), there is one,use to which they may turn the sugar' beet with profit and advantage, and that is, as food for stock, and especially for dairy cattle. For this purpose its value can scarcely be Over-estimated. Cattle generally, at the present moment, are living evidences of the necessity of providing root-crops to eke out the stock of hay during a Waikato winter. But why grow the ordinary mangold when sugar beet will give a more satisfactory result even for this purpose ? The milk of cows fed on sugar beet gives a much greater quantity of cream, and that, too, of a richer quality as compared with when they are fed on the ordinary mangold wurtzel. This has been proved to be the case on the Continent, in Britain, and wherever the plant has been grown. According to Mr E. F. De Man, a Belgian agriculturalist and the author of a pamphlet on the " Beetroot Sugar Question," the mode of cultivating the sugar beet is the same as that of wurtzel, and, all things being equal, the crop as heavy. He mentions an instauce of a crop of sugar beet grown by a relative of his in Belgium yielding at the rate of eightytwo tons per acre, a crop it would take our old friend Marks, of Remuera, to beat with the old-fashioned long red mangolds. The manure used was linseed oil at the rate of £2C worth to the acre. Linseed oil, however, is out of the reach of our settlers, and we merely mention the fact to account for what otherwise would need explanation, the growth of so enormous a crop. It is doubtful, however, whether plants forced by the use of such highly charged nitrogenous manures are worth the expense, as the bulk is increased ai the expense of the nutritious qualities. The instance of this crop is, however, valuable as evidencing the fact that for bulk of crop the sugar beet will compete with the mangold wurtzel. So far, then, for bulk, but there is another question to be considered, namely, the relative feeding qualities of tho two roots. Two tons of sugar beet are proved, by analysis, to contain as much nutritive matter as three tons of mangold. This should settle the matter of choice between the two. The cultivation is no more difficult in one case than the other, the gross produce the same, under similar circumstances, and the one crop, weight for weight, more valuable by a third. This is a large margin, and sufficient, wo think, to induce the farmer to cast aside all fear that m growing a crop of sugar beet he is wasting time, land, and labour to find himself with a useless product on hand, if after all he is unable to go a point further and turn his beet crop into su ; jar. How this can be done, and he w best set about, it was our intention to have touched upon in these rt marks, but the/ have already extended go far |

that we shall at present simply confine them to removing the first difficulty from the path, that as we have said, of showing, that independent altogether of sugar manufacturing, the sugar beet is a profitable root crop for our farmers to cultivate. By substituting sugar beet /or mangolds one objection to the latter, their cold watery "nature as food, unless pulped and mixed with chaff, would be got rid of, as the sugar beet contains a greater quantity of nutrition, and consequently less water in the same bulk. On the grounds we have mentioned, the sugar beet is far preferable as food for stock. Like mangolJs, it thrives best on a deep well stirred friable loam, and wifch a mixad manure of farmyard dung and bonedust or guano added, and. in an inland part of the country such as this, with a liberal dressing of salt. The proper way of applying the manure is, to plough in the farmyard manure deeply in the autumn drilling the super-phosphate, fine bone-dust, or guano with the seed, so as to give the young plants a quick start. In another issue, we shall refer to the question of manufacture. .