(12) 



easily be the case, when the potash and phosphoric acid 

 have been too largely drawn upon. 



The recognition of a suitable soil for sugar beets presents 

 greater difficulties than for many other plants, for they 

 obtain most of their indispensable nutriment, by means of 

 their long root, from the sub-soil, and the composition of this 

 eub-soil is therefore of immense importance. It is on this 

 account that the experiments hitherto, with superficial ma- 

 nuring, have yielded no uniform results. We manure that 

 portion of the soil, to be sure, from which the growing beet 

 does long derive noarishment, but not that portion whence 

 the plant obtains its food during the all important period of 

 the formation of sugar. And the chemical means of send- 

 ing the manures down into the sub-soil (viz : by admixture 

 of chloride of sodium,) are by no means so certain in their 

 application that we can trust confidently that invariable 

 results will follow every such experiment. 



On the other hand, and in perfect accord with this, deep 

 ploiving, (subsoiling) has given the best and surest results 

 in beet culture ; and all observations upon the happy influence 

 ■of the steam plow upon the beet crop, without exception, 

 (if we look at them in the proper light) may be referred 

 back to this cause, deep plowing. 



From this standpoint all those efforts lohich have for their 

 mm the improving of the subsoil by mechanical., as loell as by 

 chemical means are the most important in beet cidtivaiion. In 

 other words, on one hand the deeper cultivation of the ground, 

 •on the other the sub-soiling ['untergrunddungung,' (manur- 

 ing the subsoil.)] 



Chemical analysis of that portion of the soil which we are 

 accustomed to call the sub-soil ('acker krum') with a view 

 to the cultivation of sugar beets, save in exceptional cases, 

 is of little or no importance or use. And as far as the phys- 

 ical properties are concerned, experiment is always the best 

 ■means of ascertaining ivhether a soil is suited for beet culture 



