THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY. 85 



servation have shown that the season, wet or dry, warm or cold, determines whether 

 crops will be heavy or light. Any treatment, therefore, that will counteract the un- 

 even conditions of a season, even partially, will increase the yield. Subsoiling and 

 surface cultivation have a marked effect in counteracting the disastrous results of 

 drouths. The benefits of subsoiling, however, will depend almost altogether upon 

 the nature of both the surface soil and that lower down. 



Where the subsoil is very loose and porous, subsoil plowing may be a decided dis- 

 advantage, in that it forms larger passages through which the natural rainfall will 

 escape. If it is not a disadvantage, it often is of no benefit from the fact that the 

 subsoil is already sufficiently loose to retain the greatest amount of moisture. Fields 



ADJUSTABLE FOUR-ROW BEET SEEDER. 



This machine plants 15, 20, or 25 Ibs. of seed per acre in rows 16, 18 or 20 inches apart as desired, covers 



the seed lo an even depth, and firms the soil about, the seed. On large 



areas such a machine is indispensable. 



underlaid with a compact subsoil or hard pan, or those which have been plowed at 

 the same depth for a number of years, forming a hard layer ab the bottom of the fur- 

 row, are the ones chiefly benefited by this mode of culture. This practice on any 

 kind of soil, unless it is harclpan, would obviously be unnecessary during seasons 

 when rains are sufficiently frequent to furnish the necessary moisture for growing 

 crops. During wet weather the operation might result in a puddling of the soil, to its 

 great injury. It is only during very dry seasons when its full benefits would be seen, 

 but for the past 10 or 12 years in the most prominent grain and vegetable producing 

 states, there has occurred in the summer or early fall a drouth which very materially 

 shortened the crop. So true is this, that farmers and gardeners in states compara- 

 tively free from severe drouths have begun to seriously consider some method of 

 bridging over this disastrous period, especially injurious to the market gardener and 

 fruit grower. In practice it has been found that unless the soil is unusually compact, 



