Sugar Beets. 
19 
evident in ’99 as they were in ’98. The residual value of the 
manure, judging by its effects upon the second crop, is greater than 
one would be justified in anticipating. This is largely due, without 
doubt, to the peculiar resistance to complete decay and humifaction 
shown by manures in our soils. It is an often observed fact that 
manure when applied to a tilled crop remains a long time in, the 
soil without undergoing that disintegration which we are accus¬ 
tomed to see in Eastern soils, where there is an abundance of rain 
and cloudiness prevails for a much larger percentage of the time 
than with us. This fact was not new to me, but I was of the 
opinion that the soil, with the water level within from 4.5 to 3 feet 
of the surface, would remain moist enough, especially when shaded 
by the tops of the beets, to cause the complete rotting of the manure 
earlv in the season, but it was not so. The manure, some of it 
scarcely decomposed at all, was abundant when the beets were 
plowed out and can at the present time, two years subsequent to its 
application, be easily recognized as distinct from the soil. The 
practical recognition of this is the wasteful custom, still too general, 
of making no effort to convert the straw and other litter of the farm 
into manure, or of using the manure to fill mud holes in the roads 
or dumping it on the commons when it has become necessary to 
remove it from the neighborhood of the houses. It is a question 
with the ranchman how to treat the manure so as to get good 
results without materially adding to the labor of irrigation. This 
is especially true of cultivated crops. The beets did not produce 
shade enough to effect, even with the aid of the moisture in the soil, 
the rotting of the manure. 
§ 27. The straw with which we dressed one section did not 
withstand decay so persistently as the manure. This may be 
explained by the fact that there was less of it, b}^ its being loose,, 
without any matting together, and by its having been more 
uniformly mixed with the soil. 
§ 28. The effect of the straw upon the sugar content and 
coefficient of purity is not pronounced, but it is certainly less 
prejudicial than that of the manure. I cannot say that I observed 
any effect upon the form of the beets which I could attribute to the 
direct action of the straw. But its ameliorating effect upon the soil 
was quite as pronounced as that of the manure. 
This is in harmony with the view expressed in Bulletin 
46, i. e., that the soil experimented with is so rich in plant food that 
the effect, if any, of the alkali upon the growth and composition of 
the crop is obscured, and that it is not the chemical composition 
but the mechanical condition of the soil which is the factor of 
greater importance in any endeavor to improve its condition. This 
statement would be of little importance did it not apply to all of 
