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. It was Napoleon, that Frenchman of wonderful brain, who first discovered the value of beets for making sugar, and thought out the plan for raising them in rotation with other varieties of crops. He commanded that ninety thousand acres of beets be planted in different parts of France, and he established in connection with this decree a great fund of money from which bonuses were to be paid to persons who built factories to manufacture beet-sugar. He went even further, furnishing free instruction to all who wished to learn the industry. In consequence at the end of a couple of years there were in France over three hundred small sugar factories; little by little this number has increased until now the sugar product of the French nation is enormous." Fascinated by the story Bob and Van listened attentively. "Didn't other countries steal the idea of the rotating crop?" inquired Van. "Not at first. Germany tried to make her farmers believe in the new notion, but failed," answered Mr. Powers. "Later, however, as an inducement, the German government helped beet-sugar factories pay such good prices for beets that the farmers became anxious to raise them; at the same time a high duty was placed on imported sugar, and