SUGAR BEET INVESTIGATIONS FOR 1899. 



PAET I. CO-OPERATIVE EXPERIMENTS. 



By J. L. Stone. 



The investigations relating to sugar beets conducted by this station 

 during the season of 1899 have been chiefly along the lines of com- 

 parison of varieties, and testing the effect of different fertilizers on 

 the yield and quality of beets. No effort was made to locate experi- 

 ments outside the territory that is producing beets for the two fac- 

 tories now in operation in the state. However, requests were 

 received from some thirty persons living in other sections asking for 

 seeds and instruction for growing beets, both of which were for- 

 warded, and the beets received from such persons have been tested 

 for sugar and purity. 



Arrangements were made with thirty-eight farmers who were 

 engaged in sugar beet culture, and, therefore, vitally interested in 

 the work, to make a practical comparative test of live varieties of 

 sugar beets, the seed of which was furnished- to the station by the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. By having 

 the Ave varieties grown side by side, and thus under as nearly uni- 

 form conditions as to fertility and culture as possible in each of the 

 experiments, it was believed that the average results obtained would 

 be much more significant than a largei* number of tests where the 

 varieties were separated and perhaps subjected to different 

 conditions. 



In previous work it has been the custom of the station to receive 

 two beets as a sample for determining the percentage of sugar and 

 purity of the juice. It is frequently observed when these beets are 

 examined separately that they show considerable difference in con- 

 tent of sugar and purity of juice, thus leading to the conclusion that 

 the individuality of the beet may lead to an erroneous estimate of 



391 



