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. 
