1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 545 



V. Experiments with Eoot Crops. 



The importance quite generally conceded to the introduc- 

 tion of a liberal cultivation of root crops in a mixed farm 

 management, wherever a deep soil and the general character 

 of the climate favors their normal development, rests mainly 

 on the following consideration : They furnish an exception- 

 ally large amount of valuable vegetable matter, fit for fodder 

 for various kinds of farm live stock, competing in this direc- 

 tion favorably with our best green fodder crops ; and they 

 pay well, on account of large returns, for the necessary care 

 bestowed upon them by a thorough, deep cultivation to meet 

 success. 



The physical condition of the soil, however favorable it 

 may have been for the production of crops of a similar char- 

 acter, will suffer if year after year the same system of culti- 

 vation is carried out. Diversity in the mechanical treatment 

 of the soil, and change of season for such treatment, cannot 

 otherwise but affect advantageously its mechanical condition 

 and the degree of its chemical disintegration, promoting 

 thereby its fitness for developing inherent plant food, as well 

 as its power of turning to account atmospheric resources of 

 plant growth. The roots of the same plants abstract their 

 food year after year from the same layer of soil, while a 

 change of crops with reference to a difierent root system 

 renders it possible to make all parts of the agricultural soil 

 contribute in a desirable succession towards an economical 

 production of the crops to be raised. Deep-rooting plants, 

 like our prominent root crops, for this reason deserve a par- 

 ticular consideration in the planning of a rational system of 

 rotation of crops. 



To raise roots the second year, after a liberal application 

 of coarse barn-yard manure, or the turning over of grass 

 lands with the assistance of some commercial phosphatic 

 fertilizer in the interests of a timely maturity, is highly 

 recommended by practical cultivators of sugar beets. To 

 stimulate in the roots the production of the largest possible 

 amount of sugar and starch must be the object of the culti- 

 vator, for these two constituents of roots control, more than 

 any other one, their increase in solids. 



