The Red River Valley's lakebed soils — a heavy, coal-black gumbo laid down by glacial Lake Agassiz — are among the richest in North America, and each autumn they surrender one of the region's most valuable crops. The sugar beet campaign, as growers call it, opens with the first hard frost and runs day and night until the last root is out of the ground.

Sweetness from the Black Gumbo

Cooperatively owned by the growers themselves, the valley's sugar factories turn the muddy roots into refined white sugar and a molasses-rich pulp that feeds cattle through the winter. The great piles of harvested beets, ventilated by cold air to keep them from spoiling, become temporary landmarks visible for miles across the level plain.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Valley sugar factories are cooperatively owned by the beet growers.
• The rich soil descends from the bed of glacial Lake Agassiz.
• Cold-air ventilation keeps the harvested beet piles from spoiling before processing.

It is a crop that rewards cooperation and punishes the careless frost. A sudden warm spell in a beet pile can spoil thousands of tons, and so the campaign is a race against the calendar as much as a harvest. The almanac tips its cap to the growers who turned a swamp into a sugar bowl.