If you can get a cross which gives you more tonnage than a mangel and a higher nutritive content you would have something better to grow.  The first point you have to determine by growing the two side by side and weighing the product; the nutritive value of each will have to be determined by chemical analysis.  Until these determinations are actually made a comparison of desirability is nothing but conjecture.  There are several other potatoes which are sometimes more profitable here and there for early crop when grown in an early locality.  If you are not in an early locality you are obliged to produce for the main crop, and nothing, to our knowledge, sells as well as the Burbank, if you get a good one.

Beets for Stock.

Will sugar beets grow on black alkali land?  How many pounds of seed per acre should be used and when is it time for sowing in the San Joaquin valley?  Which kind would be best for cows?

Beets will do more on alkali than some other plants, but too much alkali will knock them out.  You must try and see whether you have too much alkali or not.  You can sow at various times during the rainy season, for the beets will stand some frost.  Sow 8 pounds per acre in drills 2 1/2 to 3 feet apart, so as to use a horse cultivator.  For stock you had better grow large stock beets like marigolds or tankards — not sugar beets.  It costs too much to get sugar beets out of the ground, because it is their habit to grow small and bury themselves for the sake of the sugar maker, while stock beets grow largely above ground.

Summer Start of Stock Beets.

How can I make Mangel Wurzels grow in hot weather?  The land is level and can be irrigated by flooding or ditching between the rows.  How often should the water be applied, and which method used?  The land is in fine shape; a sandy loam bordering on to heavier land.

Wet the land thoroughly; plow and harrow and drill in the seed in rows about 2 1/2 feet apart.  This ought to give moisture enough to start the seed.  Cultivate as soon as you can see the rows well.  Irrigate in a furrow between the rows about once a month; cultivate after each irrigation.

Corn Growing for Silage.

With fair cultivation, will an acre produce about 10 tons of ensilage without fertilization — it being bottom land?  How should it be planted? - the rows closer together than 3 feet, or should it be planted the usual width between rows, and thick in the rows?  If fertilizers were to be used, what kind would you recommend?  Would you recommend deep plowing followed by a packer and harrow so as to preserve the moisture?