THE FRUITS OF THE SUN.
The one remaining harvest that is to prove the quality of the most wonderful summer within memory is sugar-beet. On some farms the quality is super-excellent, and in general it may be safely inferred that the sugar content will be altogether beyond the British normal, indeed, so young is the industry, beyond any British record. In samples taken from one field, the content was found to be well over nineteen per cent., an extraordinary achievement on the part both of the selectors of seed and of the farmer concerned. One root, pointed out to me with great pride, was exactly a yard in length ; and when one considers the rootlets that extend below this, one can surely understand how the foreign grower, especially in France, came to regard the crop not only as valuable in itself, but as a " sub-soiler " superior to the best cultivator or deepest plough. It is becoming a standard belief that the tops, an invaluable food, should be left lying for a fortnight before they are fed to sheep. It is almost ludicrous to watch the greed with which they fall upon the relic scalps of the beet.
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