
SOILS OF SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY AND THEIR USES. 69 
have been recorded if a larger number of answers could have been 
secured from Monmouth County, where the blanched asparagus is 
quite extensively grown. 
The preference for a sandy loam soil for the growing of peas and 
beans as early truck crops is marked. 
The fact that eggplant is grown on a wide range of soils with 
some preference for sandy loam types is well reflected in the tabula- 
tion of the answers. Probably no other crop but peppers is grown 
on soils varying so widely in texture as eggplant. Both crops are 
picked during a prolonged season and the trucker’s requirements for 
a special soil for their production is not so marked as in many other 
cases. 
The group for which a straight-out loam soil is preferred only in- 
cludes three crops. Two of these are among the most important 
grown in southern New Jersey. 
For sweet corn the preference is decidedly for a loam soil, yet 
enough truckers are growing the crop in connection with the other 
early truck crops for 38 per cent of all of the answers to express a 
preference for a sandy loam soil. 
For onions, the loamy soils are preferred, yet a considerable num- 
bers of answers chose the sandy loam soil. 
The most extensively grown special crop in southern New Jersey 
is the Irish potato. For the production of this crop 60 per cent of 
- the correspondents preferred a loam soil and 6 per cent desired a 



“clay,” probably referring to the Sassafras loam. It may, there- 
fore, be said with confidence that two-thirds of the 450 expressed 
preferences indicate that a loam or heavy loam soil is best for potato 
growing in southern New Jersey. The remainder of the answers ex- 
pressed a preference for a sandy loam soil. 
These facts correspond very closely with the recorded facts of the 
crop and soil surveys of the four selected areas. Those surveys dis- 
closed that the greater acreage of potatoes was grown on the Sassa- 
fras loam and that the Sassafras sandy loam and Collington fine 
sand loam were also extensively used for the crop. General observa- 
tion also shows that the Collington sandy loam should be included in 
the group of preferred potato soil. 
Only one crop is selected for production upon soils heavier in 
texture than those required for potato growing. The cabbage crop 
is to be grown either upon a loam or a heavy loam soil, if the pref- 
erences of 187 southern New Jersey farmers are followed. This ac- 
cords well with the facts as observed. The Sassafras loam is used 
to some extent for growing cabbage. The soils of the Shrewsbury 
and Keansburg series are also occupied by considerable acreages of 
cabbage. There is a general tendency in the intensive trucking 
districts to plant cabbage upon the heaviest and most retentive soils 
