34 



showing how widely different kinds of soil 111113' produce beets which 

 have practically the same content of sugar. A few 3 T ears ago samples 

 of beets were received from Chautauqua County. X. Y.. which were 

 grown in a reclaimed swamp whore the drainage had been so perfected 

 as to permit the cultivation of the soil. The beets grown in this soil, 

 extreme^ rich in vegetable mold, had a vei\v high content of sugar. 

 On the other hand, samples of beets taken from almost a pure sand 

 near the Kankakee River in Indiana, where there was scarcely any 

 organic matter in the soil, had almost the same content of sugar. 

 These two t3^pes of soil were as entireh r different as can well be 

 imagined. 



RELATION OF CROP TO THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 





Among the physical properties of the soils in question, determined 

 for us by the Bureau of Soils of this Department, the first to be 

 considered is the content of clay. The soil having the lowest amount 

 of clay was that from field No. 6, Agricultural College, Mich., T.i^ 

 per cent. Low clay content is usualty associated with a high percent- 

 age of sand, and such is the case in this instance, the total sand of all 

 dimensions being nearly 75 per cent. The highest (flay content is 

 found in the sample from Utah, namely, '2i\.(\'2 per cent. This, of 

 course, would indicate a low percentage of sand, Avhich, in point 

 of fact, is only about 45 per cent. The percentages of clay in the 

 three soils producing the beets with the highest content of sugar 

 (about 14.6 per cent in each case) were as follows: In the sample from 

 Agricultural College, Mich, (field 3), 8.86 per cent; in that from 

 Ithaca, N. Y., 19.98 per cent, and in that from Lafayette, Ind.. 2 per 

 cent, while the soil producing the poorest beets, namely. Washington, 

 D. C., had 21.4 percent of cW. It is evident from a stud3' of the fig- 

 ures grouped in the folio wing table that, while the texture of the soil, as 

 shown by the mechanical analysis, undoubtedly has a direct bearing on 

 the yield per acre, it has practically no effect, on the content of >ugur 

 in the beet: 



i,f xoilx <i, i<l 'lulu rii/ni-iliii;/ tin 



hn /.v t/rnini fin r>,i. 



"Only one c'stiuintc. 



b Field 



