SOIL SURVEY OF WRIGHT COUNTY, IOWA. 17 



cultural Year Book, the acreage of spring wheat in 1918 was 4,028 

 acres, compared with 393 acres of winter wheat. However, the 

 winter wheat shows an average of 4 bushels more per acre than the 

 spring Avheat, the average yield of which is 17.3 bushels per acre. 

 The winter varieties grown are Turkey and Iowa 104. Marquis 

 and Little Bluestem are the common spring varieties. The crop 

 usually follows oats or corn, and most of it is grown on the lighter 

 and more sandy soils in the east-central and western parts of the 

 county, near the river. It is generally sold from the thrashing 

 machine. 



Sugar beets became a crop of recognized possibilities in 1910. The 

 beets are grown almost exclusively on the heavier black Webster 

 soil. The silty clay loam, which has from 2 to 4 inches of loam on 

 the surface, and the loam type are particularly adapted to this 

 crop, where properly tilled. Recently rather large areas of Peat 

 soils have been successfully planted to sugar beets, yielding from 

 10 to 14 tons per acre, but the sugar content is not as high as in beets 

 grown on other soils. The average yield is about 10 tons per acre. 

 The crop is cared for by foreign labor, mostly Russian and Gennan. 

 The erection of a 1^ million dollar refining plant at Belmond will 

 undoubtedly increase the present acreage materially. The beets are 

 now shipped to a factory at Mason City. 



Barley was grown on 1,839 acres in 1919, with a total production 

 of 40,^79 bushels and an average yield of 21.9 bushels per acre. Both 

 the 4-rowed and 6-rowed varieties are grown, the latter being con- 

 sidered the better. Barley is fed mostly to pigs. A very small 

 part of the production is shipped to outside markets. 



Hay and forage crops occupy an acreage next to oats. The total 

 crop for 1919 is given as 93,973 tons grown on 45,403 acres. About 

 one-sixth of this was wild hay, most of which is cut from untilled 

 depressed areas of Webster silty clay loam. As late as 1900 the 

 wild-grass hay tonnage for the county was nearly twice that of tame- 

 grass hay. The former has rapidly decreased with artificial drain- 

 age of the farms. 



Timothy and clover mixed constitute the chief hay crop at present. 

 Oats are nearly always used as a nuree crop. A common practice in 

 recent years has been to add some alsike and sweet clover seed to the 

 mixture of timothy and red clover. Part of the hay crop is baled 

 and shipped, but most of it is used on the farm. Considerable timo- 

 thy is gi'own separately, both for seed and hay. Where timothy is 

 grown for seed only, it is cut about the middle of July, generally 

 later than oats, and thrashed from the shock. A comparatively 

 small acreage is in clover alone. Seed is harve|ted from a consider- 

 able part of the crop. On the heavier soils that have been tiled little 

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