FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 97 



best ancestry and careful cultivation may degenerate to the point of 

 rejection in Germany, why may not a similar falling off be expected 

 in America? 



2d. Sampling the beets. — One of the difficulties the chemist meets 

 is to secure a fair sample of the material he is to analyze, whether 

 from a car of coal, the soil of a field, or the beets from a wagon load. 

 Few persons realize the nature of this difficulty, but the true value of 

 his analysis will rest upon the fairness and justness of such sampling. 

 To (ake extreme samples, whether of excellence or inferiority, would 

 be equally unfair and misleading. Sugar beets out of the same field 

 and in the same wagon load often will vary widely in value; a conical 

 beet, well developed, will differ from an ill-shaped, poorly developed 

 tuber. Which shall be taken for analysis, or what proportion of each 

 in a mixed load? The custom of the weighman to select a represent- 

 ative proportion of each kind seems to be fair, but requires good judg- 

 ment. To select only the best beets for analysis would seem unfair to 

 the manufacturer, who has a right to demand an analysis which shall 

 represent the average of the crop. A quantity of the beets contain- 

 ing in equitable proportion the different qualities of the beets in the 

 load w^ould approximate this average result. But the beets sent to 

 Washington or the Agricultural College for analysis are the best to 

 be found in the lot, and the higher results reached by these chemists 

 as compared with those of the factory chemist on the average of the 

 beets awakens the suspicion of the farmer that he is being cheated 

 at the factory. Both chemists may be correct, but they are dealing 

 with beets of different quality. 



Beets sent to a distance for analysis, and thus many days out of 

 the soil, in a warm and drying atmosphere, and wrapped in paper or 

 other drying material, must be richer in sugar than w^hen first taken 

 from the ground. A 12 per cent beet, by parting with one-eighth its 

 water thereby becomes a 13.5 per cent beet. Wilted beets often are 

 sent for analysis, and the wilted condition is stated in the report of 

 analysis, but. this fact is omitted in the results printed in the news- 

 papers. 



Take together these two factors — the selected beets of better qual- 

 ity than the average crop, and the drying of the beets before they reach 

 the chemist — and it is not difficult to see why the results of analysis 

 should be 2 to 4 yjer cent higher than the results found on fresh aver- 

 age beets at the factory. We fear that in this way we have unwit- 

 tingly done the factories an injustice and misled the farmers on an 

 important point. How to select fair samples of beets and how to 

 preserve thejn in normal condition for analysis are questions now 

 under consideration. 



An illustration of unconscious deception may throw light on this 

 subject. Some beets were sent for analysis, perfect in form and giving 

 promise of good results on analysis, which showed 17 per cent sugar 

 and 85 per cent purity. Inquiry was made as to whether these beets 

 properly represented the average of his crop. ''Oh, no; these beets 

 grew on a spot where a straw stack had rotted down, and the beets on 

 this spot were so superior to those growing on the rest of the field 

 that I sent them for analysis." 

 13 



