204 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Yield per acre, Yield per acre, 



, , Holland. Detroit. 



Variety. Lbs. Lbs. 



Schreiber's Elite '. 23,824 



Schubert's Ideal 24,690 14,960 



Dippe's Improved Kleinswanzleben 24,000 16,500 



Rabbetge und Geisecke Original 25,930 14,410 



Sebewaing A 23,637 24,772 



Meyer und Raapke Original 23,368 23,452 



Dippe's Kleinswanzleben 24,871 14,014 



Rabbetge und Geisecke Original 22,623 25,366 



Michigan Sugar Co ." .' 22,193 18,260 



Hoerning's Elite , 24,023 21,428 



Hoerning's Improved 21,538 24,684 



Otto Hoerning. 23,275 14,740 



Sachs 22,070 



C. Vorstadt 24,175 16,700 



Jaensch Victrix 21 ,830 16,390 



C. Bronne ; . 26,080 12,430 



III, EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL BY BEETS. 



In Bulletin No. 207 (Board Report for 1903, p. 18S), there is given a report of 

 an experiment to test the influence of cropping a light sandy loam with beets for 

 three successive years The work w^s conMnued through the year 1903. It will 

 be remembered that of a whole area which had been planted to Lathyrus silvestris 

 in 1890 and had borne that crop without plowing until 1898, a strip eighty feet 

 wide running north and south through the field which was sixteen rods wide had 

 been planted to beets for three -years in success on, while east and west of this 

 strip other plots parallel to it had for the sime three years produced crops of 

 oats, millet, clover or alfalfa. The history of the several pi ts was given in the 

 bulletin referred to and need not be repeated here. In 1903 the no -th strip of 

 seventy-two feet in width which in 1902 had been sown to oats, wa? this year 

 planted to sugar beets, the rows running east and west, eighteen inches apart and 

 the seed being furnished by M. Knauer of Germa^'y. The next strin south of the 

 beets was planted on the 18th of May to White Dent corn in hil s three feet nine 

 inches apart each way. This strip was seventy-nine feet wide. The south strip 

 of all, 144 feet wide, was drilled to oats on April 21, using one and one-half bushels 

 of seed per acre. 



The area which had borne beets for three years in succession crossed these 

 three crops near the middle of their length and by the 30th of May the corn, oats 

 and beets had begun to show the bad effects of this successive cropping to beets, 

 tiie crops on the area which had borne beets so long being very visibly lower in 

 height and bad in color. 



The beets were thinned on June 6th and were cultivated and hoed at frequent 

 intervals during the summer, the very wet season requiring by reason of the 

 growth of weeds, an unusual amount of cultivation. The oats were harvested 

 August 1st, the corn on September 25th, husked October 10th, and the beets, 

 lifted and toi51)ed October 17th, were hauled and weighed October 26th. The fol- 

 lowing table gives the yields, of the several crops, calculated to yields per acre. 

 Remember, that plot 3 had borne beets for the three years, 1899, 1900 and 1901, 

 and plot 4 had borne beets in 1899 and 1900 and oats in 1901, while plots 1, 2, 5, 6, 

 and 7 had been treated to various rotations, there being legumes in all the rota- 

 tions except on plot 1, which had grown Bromus inermis continuously for the three 

 years named. 



