Factors Affecting Quality of Beets 207 



and their tops are always smaller than those of inferior 

 beets. Cornwinder has shown that beets with large 

 leaves are generally richer than those with smaller leaves, 

 and he always prefers the former for seed. 



" 6. Good beet roots are considerably denser than water, 

 and rapidly sink to the bottom of a vessel filled with 

 water. The specific gravity of the roots affords a pretty 

 good test of their quality, for the greater their specific 

 gravity the richer they will be found in sugar as a rule. 

 A still better test than the gravity of the root is the 

 specific weight of the expressed juice. The juice of good 

 roots has usually a density varying between 1.06 and 

 1.07. When very rich in sugar the gravity of the juice 

 rises above 1.07, even reaching 1.078 in English-grown 

 roots, indicating over 14 per cent of crystallizable sugar. 

 Juice poor in sugar always has a density below 1.06. 



"7. In a well-cultivated soil, the roots grow entirely 

 in the ground, and throw up leaves of moderate size. 

 This tendency to bury itself in the soil is characteristic 

 of good sugar beets, but it may be greatly frustrated in 

 thin stony soil and in stiff clay resting on impervious 

 subsoil." 



Sugar-beets raised under irrigation do not conform 

 entirely to the above standards, since there is a tendency 

 for them to grow larger than when irrigation water is not 

 applied; good beets are often much larger than New- 

 lands' figures indicate. It must be remembered, how- 

 ever, that very large beets are usually lower in sugar than 

 the smaller ones. A definite correlation between size 

 and sugar-content has been observed when other con- 

 ditions are the same. 



