THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY. 85 
servation have shown that the season, wet or dry, warm or cold, determines whether 
crops will be heavy or light. Any treatment, therefore, that will counteract the un- 
even conditions of a season, even partially, will increase the yield. Subsoiling and 
surface cultivation have a marked effect in counteracting the disastrous results of 
drouths. The benefits of subsoiling, however, will depend almost altogether upon 
the nature of both the surface soil and that lower down. 
Where the subsoil is very loose and porous, subsoil plowing may be a decided dis- 
advantage, in that it forms larger passages through which the natural rainfall will 
escape. If it is not a disadvantage, it often is of no benefit from the fact that the 
subsoil is already sufficiently loose to retain the greatest_amount of moisture. Fields 
ADJUSTABLE FOUR-ROW BEET SEEDER. 
This machine plants 15, 20, or 25 lbs. of seed per acre in rows 16, 18 or 20 inches apart as desired, covers 
the seed to an even depth, and firms the soil about the seed. On large 
areas such a machine is indispensable. 
underlaid with a compact subsoil or hardpan, or those which have been plowed at 
the same depth for a number of years, forming a hard layer at the bottom of the fur- 
row, are the ones chiefly benefited by this mode of culture. This practice on any 
kind of soil, unless it is hardpan, would obviously be unnecessary during seasons 
when rains are sufficiently frequent to furnish the necessary moisture for growing 
crops. During wet weather the operation might result in a puddling of the soil, to its 
great injury. It is only during very dry seasons when its full benefits would be seen, 
but for the past 10 or 12 years in the most prominent grain and vegetable producing 
states, there has occurred in the summer or early fall a drouth- which very materially 
shortened the crop. So true is this, that farmers and gardeners in states compara- 
tively free from severe drouths have begun to seriously consider some method of 
bridging over this disastrous period, especially injurious to the market gardener and 
fruit grower. In practice it has been found that unless the soil is unusually compact, 
