236 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



fertilizer experiment on tlicir l.trpe mnek farm, prowinf.' sugar heels as one of tlio 

 (•roi)s. The average per eent of sujrar in the heets was 8. 04 (in juice !).4). Owinji 

 to excessive rains tlie firowlli was irregular, the stand uneven, and estimates of yield 

 very unsatisfacftry and misleading. The beets grown were very short and undesirable 

 for factory purposes. A similar experiment was conducted by Mr. A. M. Todd on 

 his large muck farm near Pearl, Allegan county. Here, as in the Ferguson and Allen 

 experiment, excessive rains in the early life of the beet crop rendered valueless the 

 yields as to tonnage, but the results of analyses promise for this land a profitable per 

 cent of sugar, the lowest being 11.21 per cent, the average of 20 being 12.70, while 

 samples averaged over 14 per cent. The beets were very small, the average weight 

 of the samples tested being only S ounces. 



Mr. Todd's muck farm lies in the center of a large tract of muck land which, like 

 the Ferguson and Allen muck, is annually producing good crops of mint, oats, barley, 

 corn, and the cultivated grasses, yet it is a deep muck and resembles closely many 

 of the nmck lands previously experimented with wliich gave exceedingly low per cent of 

 sugar. 



Vlay. — The difllculty with heavy clay land for beets is not so much the natural 

 productive quality of the soil as it is its physical character. The clay soil is always 

 underlaid with a still harder and more impenetrable layer of clay subsoil which 

 must be mellowed by use of the subsoil plow. Even with the best preparation the clay 

 soils aic liable to bake hard during the summer and forliid the beets from being 

 drawn well into the ground, thus forming ill-shaped roots growing largely above the 

 ground and containing a low per cent of sugar. If one is to use clay soil for growing 

 beets he must subsoil thoroughly, see that the soil contains a liberal amount of humus 

 and provide generous surface cultivation during the dry summer weather to insure 

 moisture and mellowness. 



tiand and sandij loam.- — -Xumerous experiments on those soils reveal the important 

 fact that for a crop so dependent upon a liberal and constant suj)ply of moisture 

 throughout the growing season, they are too liable to fail during the summer drought. 



The more sandy a soil the less is its capacity to attract and hold capillary moisture, 

 and the absence of a necessary supply of water during any portion of the life of the 

 plant arrests the growth and a failure of the crop is the result. A large crop of sugar 

 beets taxes the productive capacity of any soil to its limit and the lighter soils gen- 

 erall\' lack the natural fertility necessary to produce a maximum growth. There is one 

 advantage, however, with the lighter soils which should not be overlooked, and that is 

 the ease with which they are Avorked. Xo subsoiling is necessary, and the plowing 

 and nearly every operation, even to the harvesting of the crop, cleaning the beets, and, 

 we may add, the marketing, is perfornu-d with gieater ease on the lighter soils than on 

 those containing a greater admixture of clay. 



So far our experiments with the various soils teach us this, tluit clay loams will 

 give one year with another the highest yield and the most sugar. The 

 sandy loams will always produce beets of a moderately high per cent of sugar, 

 but a very dry season is liable to check the growth to a disastrous extent. Heavy clays 

 are liable to produce beets of undesirable shape and low in sugar. Sandy soil is 

 almost sure to sufier from summer drought. Muck is very uncertain both as to yield 

 and per cent of sugar, each individual field calling for a special trial before any 

 conclusion as to its adaptability to sugar beet production can be formed. 



DATE OF I'LAXTIXG. 



The ground for this experiment, a light sandy loam, was the same as we emplo^-ed 

 for a similar experiment conducted one year ago, the results of which are found on 

 page 102 of Bulletin 17i». This is the third successive year this ground has produced 

 sugar beets. 



The weather conditions for the season were better than usual, the spring opening 

 in time to plant the seed three days earlier than in the previous year, while the 

 rainfall during the summer has provided favorable moisture conditions. There seemed 

 to be nothing iji the temperature in any way seriously detrimental to the growth of the 

 sugar beet crop. 



The table below gives the results. Kleinwanzlebenev seed from Dippe, Germany, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture Xo. 3944, was used in this experiment. 



