24 Florida Agricultural Experiment Station

Bennett (2), who observed that the iron content was relatively
low in plants grown in calcareous soils.
 There appears to be a correlation within each area between
 potassium in the beans and that found in the soil. It also ap-
 pears that, in organic soils, potassium was retained best in those
 containing the most calcium, regardless of pH or exchange ca-
 pacity. Volk and Bell (21) have shown that nitrates prefer-
 entially move as Ca(NO3)2, with attendant depression of the
 solubility of potassium in the soil.
 Table 4 shows the analyses of celery and the corresponding
 soils used in celery production. The celery grown at Sarasota
 contained far less calcium and more phosphorus than celery
 grown at Sanford or Belle Glade, yet the soils at Sarasota were
 high in exchangeable calcium and soluble phosphorus. The phos-
 phorus levels in the Belle Glade soils were low, which apparently
 correlated with relatively low phosphorus content in the celery,
 as also was found for beans, but in contrast with cabbage.
 The potassium content of celery grown in the Belle Glade area
was exceptionally high. Differences in fertilization or exchange-
able potassium in the soil would hardly account for this differ-
ence from the other areas. The trend is similar to that noted
in cabbage analyses. The calcium uptake in the Sarasota area
was below average, despite the relatively high level of exchange-
able calcium in the soil.
 The variation in protein content of celery is explainable on the
basis of soil organic matter. Celery grown at Sanford on sandy
soils averaged 14.8 percent protein, while that grown in the
Belle Glade and Sarasota areas on soils having large quantities
of organic nitrogen contained 17 and 17.1 percent protein, re-
spectively.
 Table 5 shows a wide variation between the phosphorus and
protein contents of tomatoes grown in different areas on different
soil types. The phosphorus percentage of tomatoes grown in
the Ft. Pierce and Ft. Myers areas was much higher than for
tomatoes grown on the calcareous soils of Collier County and
Homestead. There was no correlation with acid-soluble phos-
phorus in the soil nor with fertilization. Within the Ft. Pierce
area, the data show that tomatoes assimilated more phosphorus
from the Pompano fine sands than from the other 4 soils. The
latter contained less acid-soluble phosphorus and received less
fertilizer.