WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 163

problem. You take it in Ohio and some of the eastern sections, they
are working on a machine now, in the nature of a check drill like they
plant corn with. Have you ever been through the beet fields to see
how they plant?
Mr. EsTeERLY. Yes.
Mr. Austin. They have to sow it first along the rows like turnips.
Each of those little beet seed has from two to five germs in it.
After those beets get up about three inches out of the ground, you
have to go through and block them out. Then you have to get down
on your hands and knees and pull out all the others from the bunch.
Now, just in that connection, you hear a lot of this criticism of
the best people about employing child labor, and especially in thinning
 the beets. The thinning of the beets is one of the most important
phases of agricultural work, because if you bruise the little beets,
or if you bruise the leaves, you are going to have blank spaces there
when the beets grow up. Now, it stands to reason that immature
children can not be depended upon for that work.
Eventually I think we will get some kind of a machine that will
do the planting and possible blocking.” I do not think we will ever
get any machine that will thin the beets.
Mr. Esterry. They might treat the seed, possibly, so as to have
only one part of it that will germinate.
Mr. AusTiN. Some years ago the Department of Agriculture, in
considering this question, found that about one seed out of every
thousand had but one germ in it. They started in to see if they
could not raise single germ beetseed, and at the end of three years
they found they were producing 50 per cent of single germs.
Mr. Esterry. Then it is possible for the Agricultural Department,
sven, to help you out; so that the immigration problem will eventually
 be solved?
Mr. Austin. We are hoping for that. We realize this is an important
 agricultural problem, and we think Mr. Box and all the
other members of the committee have a sincere desire to thresh it
out and do something that will benefit the industry and help us to
take care of this problem. In fact, all the field laborers in the beet
fields have certain periods when they are idle. For instance, between
the first and second hoeing of the fields. Then-they help the farmers
in the other crops, so that they are constantly emploved from about
the first of April to the first of December.
Mr. ScangempEr. If you do not get an increase in the tariff on sugar,
your industry may find a great surplus of Mexicans on your hands?
Mr. Austin. That is true; but we are trusting to the Lord. Mr.
Schneider.
That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. }
The CrairmMaN. Thank you very much. Now, who is left of these
witnesses? We have about four left. } } }
Somebody asked for the total number of Mexicans naturalized in
Los Angeles County since the act of 1906; from the beginning of
the immigration act of 1906. The total number naturalized since
that time 1s 111, } .
(Thereupon, at 4.30 o’clock p. m., the committee adjourned to
meet at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Wednesday, January 29, 1930.)