From time to time the suggestion has been made that the farmers of the Eastern Counties in England should tarn their attention to beet-growing for the manufacture of sugar; and quite recently it was proposed to establish sach a factory at Sleaford, on the evident assumption that there would be no lack of material wherewith to feed it. The announcement made in these colamas yesterday, that Suffolk farmers had accepted offers from a Continental firm to grow beet, the Continental firm supplying the seed gratis and giving seventeen shillings a ton for the produce, indicates that one part at least of the scheme is to be accomplished. The firm which makes this offer also undertakes to supply an analysis of any samples of soil sent, and to advise as to the best manores. The produce will be shipped from Ips or Parkeston, and will be carried' on rail, by the Great Eastern Railway Company, at the same cheap rate as feeding beet. In plain Language this arrangement undoubtedly means that the Eastern Counties are better fitted for beet-growing than Germany. A great part of the German 1909 crop wee frozen in the ground at a time when English plants woald have been quite uninjured; and, the foreigners' confidence in Suffolk soil is indicated by the' fact that they wish to see 200 acres of the county under beet. One cannot repress the thought that mach of the now almos* traditional depression of English agricalcare might be lightened, if the English farmers as " body would their attention to other enterprises than those which they have accepted faithfully from their ancestors, Tt is said that 8 ment that they might do far better by combining to manafactare their own Among the exhibite that are to be shown will be farm produce, agricaltare, machinery, mining, textile manufscta ad national drinks, fancy ethnological, sports, game, fish, and fars, village industries, with native workers, Siberia, Mid-Asia and the Caucasus, reproductions of noted buildings, &c. The undertaking, we are told, will be parely Russian and, as its chief object is the encouragement of trade relations between England snd Russia, profit will not be sought for. At the same time, the ides would appear to have been already warmly received by British firms, many of which have taken part in exhibitions in Rassia with ood success. We may note in passing that if the exhibition serves to bring home to British firms the opportunities now given for agricaltaral implements and machinery generally in Siberia, it should more than justify itself. ell es of Siberia in likely to be incaleolable already manifest, bat unhappily they appear as yet to be little realized io Great Britain, though the dispatch of a fow Rassinn-speaking agents could hardly fail to yield excellent profits and to establish a usefal connexion with the development of this grest land.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.