If even a small proportion of this area were to be
planted with beets we could get enough sugar from them to enable us
to ship it to foreign markets instead of yearly importing a large
amount of it. The trouble is that we Americans are so rich in land
that we waste it and fail to get from it a tenth part of what we
might. If you doubt that travel in Europe and see what is done with
land on the other side; or, better yet, watch what some Italian in
this country will get from a bit of land no bigger than your pocket
handkerchief."
Mr. Powers stopped a minute and looked out of the window.
"The great objection our people make to growing beets is that they
injure the soil so that nothing else planted afterward will
flourish. Now to an extent this is true. Beets do run out the soil
if they are raised year after year on the same land. If our farmers
were not so slow to get a new idea they would raise beets in
rotation as is done in Europe."
"What do you mean by rotation?" demanded Bob.
"A rotating crop is one that produces a sequence of different kinds
of harvests," explained Mr. Powers. "By that I mean harvests of
entirely varying nature. Abroad they have learned that a hoed crop,
when planted annually, destroys the productivity of the earth;
therefore foreigners plant beets one year in three or five and
cereals, turnips, or something else in between times. Formerly they
used to let the land lie fallow a year to rest it, but now they have
worked out a scheme by which they get a crop every year.
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