890 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
for sugar beets, and this crop was raised the following year. It was 
notagain subsoiled but plowed in the same manner as was the re- 
mainder of the field. It is a very noteworthy fact that the position 
of this subsoiled land can now be determined almost to a row by 
the superiority of the corn growing onit. The stalks on the land 
not subsoiled are small, 
badly dried up and have 
not made any grain, while 
those on the subsoiled land 
are of good size, having a 
fresh, green appearance, 
and will give a fair yield of 
grain. This, it must be re- 
membered, is the effect in 
1895 of subsoil plowing 
in the fall of 1891. | 
Such results are encour- 
aging in the extreme. They 
show that with very little 
extra expense crops can be 
raised with much less rain- 
fall thanis generally sup- 
posed. The subsoil plow- 
ing can be done with three 
horses, and does not re- 
quire much more time than 
surface plowing. Thesub- 
soiler should follow in the 
furrow of the surface plow. 
The operation doubles the 
expense of plowing, but, as 
has been shown, its benefi- 
cial effects continue for sev- 
eral years. Probably,once 
in three years would be often enough to subsoil, but that has not 
yet been determined definitely. 
In all cases in which subsoiling has been done in the fall that 
have been reported to this station, the results have been highly sat- 
isfactory. Ifthe effect has notalways been apparent the first season 
after subsoiling, it at least makes itself felt in the course of two or 
three years. The reason for this is that if very little rain falls after 
the subsoiling and before the crop or crops on the land are grown, 
as has been the case in the last three years, the small amount of 
moisture that is received sinks more readily than otherwise into the 
soil and, though retained there, is not easily given up to the plant 
roots until the demands of the soil itself are satisfied. After the 
practice has once been started, however, the excess of water beyond 
the demands of the soil always continues. 
Among those who have tried subsoiling in this state are Messrs. 
Youngers & Co., of Geneva, who deserve great credit for the enter- 
prise they have shown in their experiments on this subject and 
