24: SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



crops. These are wheat, oats, corn, buckwheat, late potatoes, barley, rye, 

 grass, alfalfa and beans. 



" Fifth. The sandy loam soils are best suited for the growing of 

 barley, rye, beans, early potatoes, and, under special conditions of loca- 

 tion near to water level, of onions and celery. 



" Sixth. Sandy soils are best adapted to the early potatoes grown 

 as market garden or truck crops, and to rye. 



"This summary takes into consideration only the texture of the 

 soil and its adaptations under fair conditions of drainage, organic matter 

 content and average skill in treatment. 



"Yet the articles have called special attention to certain other 

 features than those of soil texture. Otherwise, the specific naming of the 

 different loam soils would not have been given. 



"The noteworthy lime content of the soils of the Dunkirk, Ontario, 

 Cazenovia, Dover and Hagerstown loams has been made evident as a 

 basis for the profitable growing of alfalfa, since the plant is known to be 

 particularly sensitive to the amount of lime contained in the soil. 



"Similarly the production of the late or staple potato crop has been 

 noted upon soils which are particularly well supplied with organic matter 

 as in the case of the Caribou loam and the Volusia loam. Other loams 

 and silt loams produce good crops of potatoes upon individual farms 

 where there is an unusually good supply of organic matter in the soil, 

 but not on portions of the other types not so well supplied. Good organic 

 matter content is rather a general characteristic of a good potato soil and 

 is found on the types named. 



"Beans may be grown upon a large number of different soils if the 

 farmer is satisfied with average crops. But the best bean crops are secured 

 from soils which are well supplied both with organic matter and with lime. 

 Hence, the Clyde loam and clay loam and the soils of the Dunkirk series 

 are among the best bean soils. 



"It is still impossible to state precisely what varieties of the different 

 crops are best suited to a particular soil, yet I hope to see the time when 

 there will be special breeding of staple crops to meet the different con- 

 ditions which prevail upon different soils. Some time there will be strains 

 of wheat, of corn, of oats, of alfalfa and of other field crops which have 

 been developed for generations upon a specific type of soil and which 

 excel all other strains of the crop for that soil. This is inevitable in time, 

 since the characteristics of plants may be fixed by growing them under 

 the same conditions of soil and climate for many plant generations. 



"There are certain broad generalizations in crop adaptation which 

 are very generally known, but may profitably be stated again. 



"The friable loam is the great soil texture of the temperate, humid 

 regions, possessing the broadest crop adaptations, and usually the mcst 

 permanent natural fertility of all soils. 



"As any departure is made from the loam texture there is a restriction 



