EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 305 



THE SOIL. 



Certain conditions of soil, both in chemical composition and texture, 

 are best suited to the development of the sugar beet. The plant requires 

 a good supply of potash and phosphates, but its quality is injured by 

 excess of organic matter and nitrates, causing a decrease of sugar and 

 an increase of gum-like or non-saccharine matter, lowering the coefficient 

 of purity. Mucky lands and soils containing an excess of vegetable mat- 

 ter are not suitable for raising sugar beets. In spite of many warn- 

 ings on this point, many farmers have persisted in planting their sugar 

 beets on muck, with the result of lowering the record for sugar beets 

 in their county and the records for the State at large — in the latter case a 

 reduction of nearly one-half per cent. There can be no objection to 

 farmers planting all the sugar beets on muck they may choose, but they 

 should uot offer them as sugar beets for making beet sugar. They are 

 good for fodder and good for nothing else. 



The texture of the soil is of great importance. The body of the beet 

 should be entirely covered by the soil, only the crown and leaves appear- 

 ing above it. No part of the beet that grows above the soil is of value in 

 making sugar. To have the beets thus grow within the soil, the latter 

 must be open and porous, and the subsoil in particular must be pene- 

 trable by the tap root as it goes down in search for mineral food and 

 especially for water in the season of surface dryness. This last con- 

 dition is often not sufficiently considered in preparing a held for sugar 

 beets. The tap root penetrates the soil to a surprising depth if the sub- 

 soil is porous, and draws most of the supply of moisture for ihe plant 

 from the subsoil. If there is enough rain in May, June and July to get 

 the tap root well established on its exploring trip for food and moisture, 

 and the subsoil is open so that the roots freely penetrate the deeper 

 soil, then the "August drought'' does not retard the growth of the beet, 

 and the bright sunshine of August, September and October packs the 

 beets full of sugar. But to carry forward this process of saccharine 

 accumulation during such "dry spells," the plant must draw upon the 

 deep vaults of our bank of earth by the tap root reaching the water of 

 the subsoil. Such results can be secured only when the subsoil is pene- 

 trable by the beet root. Hence the need of very deep cultivation and of 

 subsoiliug by the plow to break up any hard pan. It is also « vident 

 that the tap root should not be brokeu, and this explains why trans- 

 planting is often a failure, unless done with care. 



An open soil — a loam, sandy loam, clay loam, sandy soil, or gravelly 

 soil — with a penetrable subsoil, is the ideal for growiug sugar beets. 

 A stiff clay with a hard pan is the most difficult to manage; and the muck 

 beds are to be rejected entirely. 



THE KIND OF BEETS. 



The beet now used for making sugar is a highly developed plant, and 

 has been secured as the result of careful cultivation and selection for a 

 loug period. When Margraff of Austria announced, oue hundred and 

 fifty years ago, the presence of cane sugar in the White Silesian beet 

 in such quantities that sugar could be manufactured from this beet, 

 39 



