Manuring and Rotations 77 



is brought together and carefully studied, a fairly ac- 

 curate judgment of the soil requirements may be made. 

 The practice of applying any kind of fertilizer the dealer 

 may have for sale, without making a thorough investi- 

 gation, cannot be too strongly condemned. 



COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR BEETS 



In some regions where an abundance of farm manure is 

 available, little or no commercial fertilizer may be needed 

 for beets. There are many sections, however, where the 

 supply of manure is insufficient. In these places com- 

 mercial fertilizers will find increased use. The kind of 

 fertilizer will of course depend largely on soil conditions. 

 From Table IV it is evident that the sugar-beet plant 

 uses relatively large quantities of potassium, which means 

 that sugar-beet fertilizers should be well supplied with 

 this element. After this requirement is satisfied, an 

 effort should be made to supply a well-balanced fer- 

 tilizer for the average soil. Voorhees 1 shows that sugar- 

 beets grown on light soils often require potash, while on 

 heavier loamy soils this element is not needed. He brings 

 out the fact that fertilizers that produce too rapid or too 

 prolonged growth tend to reduce the percentage of sugar. 

 Phosphoric acid is one of the most necessary constituents 

 to produce a large and rapid leaf growth in the early part 

 of the season when the plant is preparing itself for the 

 storage of sugar. This fertilizer should, therefore, be 

 present in comparatively large quantities in the soluble 

 form during the early period of growth. 



1 Voorhees, E. B., "Fertilizers," pp. 235-240. 



