2 BULLETIN 199_, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



first torn from their root anchorage and lifted several inches in the 

 soil, which is at the same time loosened. As soon as several rows 

 have been dug, laborers pull the beets entirely out of the ground by 

 hand, throwing those ffom five, seven, or nine rows into piles at 

 convenient distances apart in the line of the center row. Another 

 squad of' laborers immediately follows and tops the piled beets, 

 throwing the tops to one side of the pile of beets. Finally the wagon 

 comes, and the beets are loaded into it and at once hauled to the 

 factory scales. It is thus possible to haul the first load within about 

 an hour after the digging is begun. Most beet growers, however, 

 are not able to organize the work so well. For one reason or another 

 several days may elapse before the beets reach the scales. After the 

 beets are torn from their root system, transpiration still continues, 

 but the water thus lost is no longer replaced by the roots. Evapo- 

 ration also takes place from the underground portion of the beets in 



Fig. 1 — Tempeiature cuive, October 14 to 19, 1912, Ogden experiment station, Ogden, Utah. 



the now loosened soil. After the beets have been pulled, the evap- 

 oration is greatly augmented, whether or not the beets have been 

 topped. Commonly, the beets after being topped are thrown into 

 open piles of no great bulk, remaining there until loaded into wagons. 

 It is obvious that much loss of weight may occur between the dig- 

 ging and the weighing of the beets. The experiments described in 

 this bulletin were carried out to ascertain the extent of these losses. 



EXPERIMENTS IN PULLING AND DRYING SUGAR BEETS. 



THE DRYING OF BEETS PULLED BUT NOT TOPPED. 



At Ogden, 



Utah, October 17, 1912, the writer dug and pulled 

 several rows of beets. After shaking off the adhering soil these beets 

 were at once weighed and spread on the surface of the ground in the 

 rows from which they had been pulled. They were gathered and 

 weighed again the same evening; then spread out and left until the 

 following morning, when they were weighed for the last time. The 

 mean temperature during this experiment was 43.29° F. (See fig. 1.) 

 The results are given in Table I. 



