68 BULLETIN 677, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGEICULTURE. 



yet a loam soil is the expressed second choice. This is particularly 

 marked in the case of peppers and tomatoes, for which there seems to 

 be little preference between a sandy loam and a loam soil. 



In the case of tomatoes the geographic distribution of the several 

 answers served to indicate that the sandy loam soils were preferred 

 where the crop was grown for early harvesting as a market crop, 

 while the loam soil was as distinctly preferred in growing the crop 

 for the canning factories. 



In this case the crop is grown for two distinctly separate purposes. 

 The truck-crop grower desires to secure a moderately heavy yield of 

 early varieties which will sell at high prices. The main crop is 

 marketed in crates and some of the later pick is marketed at much 

 smaller prices for canning if the conditions are favorable. The 

 grower of tomatoes as a truck crop depends chiefly on early market- 

 ing and a high price. He, therefore, prefers a sandy loam soil. 



The grower of tomatoes who contracts his crop to the canning 

 factory sets different varieties from the trucker. His sales are 

 usually made on the ton basis and he decidedly depends upon heavy 

 yields for his chances for profits. He, therefore, desires to use a 

 heavier loam soil. For this reason the Sassafras loam has come to 

 be recognized as the leading soil type for the growing of canning 

 tomatoes, as it has been for the growing of Irish potatoes. 



In the case of peppers, the crop is used by many truckers as a 

 supplementary crop only. By them it is planted upon land which 

 was not in condition for planting to early tomatoes, to sweet pota- 

 toes, or to some other standard early truck crop. Small areas of 

 low, wet land within a sandy or sandy loam field are frequently 

 planted to peppers long after the remainder of the field has been set 

 out to tomatoes or sweet potatoes. In other cases, where peppers 

 constitute a special crop, grown in large acreage, the crop has been 

 found to produce reasonably early fruits on sandy loam soils and 

 also to continue the picking season up to frost limits, when it is 

 planted upon loams. It is therefore a crop grown quite extensively 

 in some localities which are not fitted by the presence of sandy soil 

 for the growing of the standard truck crops. The Sassafras sandy 

 loam and the Sassafras gravelly sandy loam, in southeastern 

 Gloucester County and in adjacent portions of Atlantic and Cum- 

 berland Counties, are quite extensively planted to peppers. 



It will be noted that asparagus and cantaloupes stand at the head 

 of the crops for which sandy loam to sandy soils are preferred. 

 There is little difference between them with respect to soil choice. 

 The answers received concerning asparagus were grouped somewhat 

 excessively in the southwestern part of the State, where the produc- 

 tion of the unblanched stalks is a specialty. It is possible that a 

 stronger tendency toward the use of a decidedly sandy soil would 



