280 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



The seed was seut out early iu May and was nearly all planted before 

 the first of June. The plots were necessarily very small and no reports 

 will be made of the tonnage. The rows were, in most cases, eighteen inches 

 apart, the thinning was done between the middle of June and the fifteenth 

 of July. The culture was largely by hand and consisted of hoeing fre- 

 quently enough to keep down the weeds. The harvesting occurred in late 

 October and early November. The season was rather dry for the upper 

 peninsula, a full report of the rainfall appearing in a bulletin soon to 

 issue, and to be had on application to the Secretary, Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Mich. 



The soil varied from a sandy to a clay loam, with no samples from 

 muck. 



At the time of harvest, typical samples were sent to the College for 

 analysis. These samples were inclosed in cloth sacks and, owing to the 

 long distance traveled, were more than two days, and often more than 

 three days on the road. They dried out very perceptibly in this journey 

 so that figures given below are all too high to express the amount of 

 sugar in the beet at the time it was pulled from the ground. 



F. W. Robison, the chemist of the Station, undertook to secure some 

 data as to the amount of this loss of water in transit. 



Samples of beets were subjected to conditions similar to those sur- 

 rounding the beets sent to the College from the upper peninsula and for 

 a like period of time, namely three days. It is, of course, impossible to 

 discover how long the beets sent for analysis were pulled before shipment 

 nor to what conditions they were subjected. It was, therefore, impossible 

 to imitate those conditions. In this test, therefore, the samples of beets 

 were kept in the laboratory or in an office for three days and were 

 analyzed, with the following results : 



Weight 

 Original after 3 Loss of Sugar in Sugar in 

 weight, days, weight, juice on juice as 

 Sample. grains. grains. % analysis, harvested 



1 734.8 582.5 20.7 18.6 14.68 



2 466.9 388.5 16.8 20 16.6 



3 457.5 358.5 21.6 20.9 16.4 



4 361.6 287.5 20.4 20 15.9 



The drying out of the beets in shipment is, therefore, a very important 

 factor, and the results reported in the table following must be considered 

 with this fact in mind. 



The following tables report the analyses of beets grown in the Upper 

 I'eninsula in 1902. After the name of the grower, the figure refers to the 

 variety by number, as given in the table above; next follows a column 

 reporting the per cent of sugar in beets as they arrived at the College. 

 The last column gives the purity of the juice or the per cent of sugar in 

 the total solids dissolved in the juice : 



