THE CLYDE LOAM. 11 



yields are not particularly high. Upon the Clyde loam they range 

 from 10 or 12 bushels per acre to 20 bushels or more. The average, 

 however, is not much above 15 bushels per acre for this type. This 

 is., nowever, in excess of the yields secured upon many of the upland 

 soils in the same general region. In the more western areas, where 

 spring wheat is exclusively grown, large acreages are seeded upon 

 the type whenever the moisture conditions are such that it can be 

 prepared and seeded. In seasons of normal or somewhat deficient 

 rainfall the yields of spring wheat in North Dakota upon the Clyde 

 loam range from 12 to 18 bushels per acre, with a general average in 

 the vicinity of 13 bushels. In wet years the type is either not seeded 

 to wheat or the crop is liable to be a partial or complete failure 

 owing to the lack of drainage. 



Next to wheat, oats constitute the most important grain crop, con- 

 siderably exceeding the acreage planted to corn on the Clyde loam. 

 Oats are even better suited to this type than either winter or spring 

 wheat, and the yields are high in the different areas where the crop 

 is grown. In Michigan the yields range from 35 to 60 bushels per 

 acre, while the general average through a long period of time may be 

 stated at 40 bushels per acre, or somewhat greater. Consequently 

 the oat crop is, to a considerable degree, displacing wheat as the 

 small grain for the Clyde loam. Aside from a tendency toward 

 excessive growth of straw, already noted, the Clyde loam constitutes 

 an almost ideal soil for oat production. 



In all of the more eastern areas where the Clyde loam is developed 

 corn constitutes the most extensive intertilled crop produced upon it. 

 The yields are fair to good, ranging from 25 to 45 bushels per acre, 

 with a general average in the vicinity of 35 bushels. The acreage 

 planted to corn upon the Clyde loam in North Dakota is insignificant, 

 although the yields are fair, considering the climatic disadvantages, 

 the rather intractable nature of the surface soil, and its almost total 

 lack of drainage. The yields reported upon the small acreage planted 

 are in the vicinity of 25 bushels to the acre. 



Sugar beets. The Clyde loam is the most important sugar-beet 

 soil in the eastern areas where the crop is produced. The importance 

 of the production of sugar beets in the various portions of the United 

 States where climatic conditions are favorable to the growing of this 

 crop caused a somewhat extensive investigation of the different soils 

 suitable for sugar-beet production, particularly in the Eastern States. 

 This study was undertaken by the Bureau of Soils principally during 

 the summer of 1904, and so 1 ! surveys were made in the southern 

 peninsula of Michigan, which included the areas where the develop- 

 ment of the crop had attained its greatest extent. Sugar beets are 

 grown upon quite a wide variety of soils, all of them somewhat simi- 

 lar in their principal characteristics. From the observations made of 



