Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
If sugar beet growing and harvesting is completely mechanized, the probability is
that it will be due to the fact that certain details now employed in hand work are
not indispensable or that suffi cient savings in money can be effected to offset some
losses in ultimate sugar per acre. (1939, 1)
Thus, the crucial test for machine thinning lay in whether it could produce
comparable results at a cost savings over hand thinning. Tavernetti reports
some promising fi gures from his fi eld trials, showing that the weight of
sugar extracted from an acre of machine-blocked beets was essentially the
same as that taken from an acre of hand-thinned beets; in other words,
more small beets were equivalent to fewer large ones. However, he ends
with a cautious note: “There are a large number of other problems involved
which must be studied and understood before the grower can afford to
take the risk of eliminating all hand thinning” (2).
The onset of the war two years later, the depletion of domestic labor
sources, and the initial reluctance of the United States and Mexican gov-
ernments to begin a new labor recruitment program pushed mechaniza-
tion to the foreground. Although the technology was still experimental,
Spreckels and UC farm advisors began encouraging beet growers to con-
sider mechanization to grow and harvest their crops. Spreckels hired Austin
Armer, a specialist in agricultural engineering, to adapt and improve work
on sugar beet mechanization that he had begun with the USDA (Spreckels
1943). Spreckels also purchased thinning and harvesting prototypes of
farm machinery for Armer and his staff to experiment with and to fi eld
test with local growers.
30
Throughout 1943 the
Spreckels Sugar Beet Bulletin
featured reports on these initial trials, with examples of local growers' suc-
cessful use of the machinery for thinning and harvesting expressed in bold
headlines such as “
COSTS
CUT
WITH
DIXIE
THINNER
” (Lambdin 1943; Crane
1943). The following year Armer (1944) was encouraging growers to care-
fully plan their crop plantings for the 1944 season in order to take advan-
tage of the advances made in the sugar beet harvesting technology.
Spreckels also made several harvesters available for grower use during the
1944 campaign (Spreckels 1944).
The initial use of the new machinery for the spring and fall beet work
did not live up to the hype, and few growers showed interest in mecha-
nized production. Monterey County farm advisor A. A. Tavernetti (1943)
also continued to strike a more balanced tone, informing growers through
the
Bulletin
that thinning costs had risen dramatically during the war years
