LOSS IN TONNAGE OF SUGAR BEETS BY I) HYING. 7 
EFFECT OF DRYING UPON THE SUGAR CONTENT OF BEETS. 
At the time these experiments were carried on it was imprac- 
ticable to make tests of the sucrose content of the beets to ascertain 
the effect of the evaporation that took place, as indicated in the pre- 
ceding tables. 
After the writer's return to Washington, D. C, some beets were 
taken from the silo, carefully packed, and expressed to Washington 
for laboratory tests. These beets were quite fresh and crisp when 
received. 
Eight of these beets were sent to the sugar laboratory of the 
Bureau of Chemistry on January 15, 1913. From each of them a 
diagonal core was rasped out for analysis. (Fig. 4.) Each end of 
Fig. 4.— Sugar beets, showing the method of rasping out a core from individual beets to make sucrose 
determinations. 
the hole thus made in the beets was immediately plugged with a 
rubber stopper, the beets being weighed before and after the core 
had been taken out. 
The beets were then returned to the writer, who exposed them 
to a brisk current of air in a well-lighted room at a temperature 
ranging from 73° to 77° F. for 4 J hours, in which time the average 
loss of weight of the eight beets was 3.76 per cent. The beets were 
again turned over to the sugar laboratory, where a similar core was 
taken from each beet for test. This was done shortly before noon of 
the following day. Meantime the beets had been kept in a cool 
chamber. As will be seen by Table VII, the beets lost as much while 
in the sugar laboratory before being tested as during the exposure to 
the current of air. 
