The Imperial press., 1905-07-08
EXPERIMENTS WITH SUGAR BEETS
More Than 100000 Acres Imperial Valley Adapted To Their
 Production
Production

scarce in one salt, and that is sodium
 chloride. And just as the good land
 was found to contain little salt, the
 land where beets could not be grown
 was found to contain more salt than
 other substances.
 After discovering that salt is the
 enemy of the beet, Dr. Shaw con-
 structed curve and found that its
 presence to greater extent than two
 tenths of one per cent was the limiting
 mark of it's utility for beet culture. "-
 Union.
 Tie above report is given for the
 purpose of calling attention to it's bear
 ing on our Valley as beet sugar pro- ducing region. Sugar beets have not
 been as fully tried out here as have some other crops, but the experience
 with them so far has been entirely satisfactory. The deductions, of the learned scientist who made the above report, are worthy of attention and the first question raised is as to what pro- portion of our soils he would place be- yond the pale of production for sugar beets. All we can quote is the report of one J. Garnett Holmes, and we confess that there is no market here for his predictions concerning the behavior of our soils under irrigation, no matter how correct his analyses may be. In his report of 1904 on the soil survey of the Imperial area, he gives number of soil analvses, detailing the quantities and kinds of alkali salts he found in them.
 The quantity of common salt found was never more than one-fourth, and in most cases less than one-ffth of the total alkali content of the lands ex- amined. As there is a total of 46O.864 acres of land in this Imperial Valley that contain less than one per cent of alkali salts of all kinds it can be seen what an acreage we have that will come on tsile of the conclusions of Professor Shaw, and will be found to be suitable for sugar beet production. But to make our conclusions sure, let us deduct the 73 600 acres that contain from sx-tenths to one per cent of alkaline content, and limit the area we claim to be suitable for sugar beet production to 387 ,240 acres, which according to the soil survey of Mir. J. Garnett Holmes and his party, contain less than six-tenths of one per cent of alkali salts.
 As the lands in our Valley are very dry indeed, until water is applied to them, and as the dry soil for hundreds of feet below the surface presents an space into which the water used in irrigation sinks, carrying the soluble alkali salts with it, and as common table salt is the kind found to be detrimental to sugar beets, by Prof. Shaw, and as this kind of salt is the most soluble of any, we feel no trepida- ton for the future of sugar beets in our Valley. Irrigation will dissolve and carry away any excess of alkali salts, no matter what kind they are, and soil thus reclaimed and sweetened will pro luce larger crops and more different kinds of valuable products than any other region in the arid west.
 The more Imperlal Valley is farmed the more it's real worth as a rich country will be established, and we unhesitat- nglv believe that there is enough land in this Valley suitable for the produc- ton of sugar beets to furnish ten sugar factories as larg" as the one at Oxnard with all the beets they could grind up by running five months every year. Imperial Valley ia destined tn fulfill the nropheOv of Prof Elwood Mead and double the agricultural productions of 1l, :a knk