86 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ernment stations and by private growers, 

 it has been shown that Folgers is the best 

 early cane. It has all the advantages of 

 early maturation of amber, and is superior 

 to it in every respect in yield per acre, 

 sugar content, and for syrup making. Mr. 

 Denton, on being asked which is the best 

 cane for syrup, replied, Folgers, for it is 

 the one out of all others yielding a large 

 amount of syrup that does not crystallize. 

 While it is a week or ten days later than 

 amber in ripening, yet in all tests of the 

 two we have found one hundred days after 

 planting it had an equal amount of su- 

 crose. 



Colman is a splendid cane. A cross be- 

 tween amber and orange, it is far ahead of 

 either; it is firmly established and not only 

 maintains the high standard reached, but 

 improves from year to year. It is of great 

 value for sugar, gives a large tonnage, and 

 is a good resistor of drought and frost, giv- 

 ing also a heavy seed crop. As a good 

 cane for feed it is only surpassed by 

 Collier. 



The Collier is the third selected as being 

 superior with Folgers and Colman to all 

 others, and is recommended as the best 

 variety for northern latitudes where sor- 

 ghum is grown for sugar. Its sugar con- 

 tent is very high, and as winter feed it is 

 simply perfection tall, sweet and slender 

 stalks, with an abundance of foliage which 

 is resistant to frosts, and with the light 

 seed heads stands up well even against our 

 Kansas winds and calamity howls. It 

 ripens early although a late cane and can 

 be planted as late as June 15, and still 

 mature. It gives a fine quality of syrup, 

 which, however, very soon turns to sugar. 

 Wherever corn can be grown sorghum 

 will flourish and will bear drought infinite- 

 ly better. On the other hand we have a few 

 acres planted on land irrigated a week 

 before seed was put in, and this crop is still 

 standing for the reason that the only way 

 we could devise to harvest a forest of sor- 

 ghum, was to turn in the cattle, and let 

 them eat at leisure. No machine we have 

 can cut it. 



It looks as though the knowledge gained 

 and money spent on perfecting this great 

 plant was being rapidly wasted. Very few 

 people are keeping their seed pure in this 

 district. It is a thousand pities to have it 

 all lost, for apart from the sugar question 

 which is rapidly changing for the better, 



as a forage plant alone sorghum is more 

 valuable as it is kept pure and each variety 

 grown separately. 



SOILS AND PLANT FOOD. 



BY H. R. HILTON. 



[Extracts from paper read before the annual meeting 

 of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture.] 



PLANTS need food, like animals, and, 

 like animals, do best on a balanced 

 ration. 



The essential elements of this balanced 

 ration obtained from the soil are nitrogen, 

 potash, phosphorus, lime, magnesia, iron 

 and sulphur. If one of these is absent 

 from the soil, or not in available form, the 

 plant will be defective. If either nitro- 

 gen, potash, phosphorus or lime are ab- 

 sent, the plant will be short-lived. All of 

 these elements are needed, and if one be 

 missing, that one controls the life of the 

 plant. 



Assuming that all food elements re- 

 quired are present in sufficient supply, 

 four important agents must still co-op- 

 erate before the seed can germinate and 

 the plant partake of the foods provided. 

 These are heat, air, water and light. If 

 there is a deficiency or excess of either one 

 of this quartette, plant life suffers; if all 

 are present in right proportions the plant 

 reaches its highest perfection. 



Each plant has its own requirement of 

 heat, air and water, but when a tine textured 

 soil has a temperature of 75 to 90, F. 

 and contains 20 to 30 per cent of its bulk 

 of water, or 16 to 20 pounds of water to 

 each 100 pounds of soil, an-d the air can 

 permeate freely, it is in the most favorable 

 conditions for the growth of our ordinary 

 field crops. 



The mineral elements of plant food are 

 usually abundant in our western soils. 

 Some, like potash, are most abundant 

 where the rainfall is least, and least abun- 

 dant where the rainfall is greatest. 



Nitrogen, a product of decaying animal 

 and vegetable matter in the soil, is the 

 most costly, the most easily wasted or lost 

 from the soil and the most valuable to the 

 plant itself of all the food elements ob- 

 tained from the soil. 



Organic matter (i. e. , animal and vege- 

 table matter) in its various processes of 

 decomposition in the soil is called humus, 



