Sugar Beet Investigations. 



169 



on top, several inches more of the hard soil. The earth should thus 

 be stirred to a depth of twelve to fifteen inches. This fall treatment 

 is desirable on several accounts. It permits the turning up of more 

 new soil than would be safe in the spring. It secures the more com- 

 plete decomposition of any coarse vegetation that may be on the land. 

 It breaks up the compactness of the soil so that it can receive the 

 winter's rain and store it for the next season's crop. Opportunity is 

 given for the re-establishment of the capillary action in the soil which 

 was disturbed by deep plowing, enabling the plant to draw from the 

 deeper reservoirs of moisture during the dry season. 



It is not advised to plant sod land to beets, but if necessary to do so, 

 it should be fall plowed to give time for the decomposition of the sod, 

 the settling of the soil and the re-establishment of capillary action. It 

 should be plowed deep .so as to have plenty of loose earth for a seed 

 bed without disturbing the decaying sod. Sod land will probably 

 sufier more from drought than other, but with plenty of moisture it will 

 grow large crops of beets, which, however, may be low in sugar and in 

 purity on account of too much organic matter in the soil. For the 

 same reasons it is best to apply barn manure to the preceding crop 

 rather than to the beets, but if used on the beet land it should be 

 applied in the fall and plowed under. The influence on the quality of 

 beets of an application of manure applied to the land the same season 

 the crop is grown, as compared with the same applied the previous 

 year, is .shown in the following table, which includes all the plats thus 

 reported : 



Quality as Affected by Barn Manure Applied in 1896 and 1897. 



Another effect of the direct application of barn manure is the ten- 

 dency to produce ill-formed beets, as shown in figures 152 and 153, 

 page 176. 



Commercial fertilizers may be applied in the spring, but they should 

 be thoroughly incorporated with the soil. Observations made this 



