— 24 — 
about reached its full limit. There were fifty-one samples 
reported after that date ranging from 10.5 per cent sugar 
with 72.4 per cent purity, to 20.9 per cent sugar and 85.3 per 
cent purity, with an average of 15.5 per cent sugar, and 81.6 
per cent purity. What has been done by these growers on 
their first attempt ought certainly to be equaled on a large 
scale for factory use when they are better aquainted with the 
best methods. 
One point needs to be specially mentioned. The large 
crops average the highest in quality. The nine fields, of 
which we have analyses from the ripe crops, reporting over 
twenty tons of beets per acre with an average of twenty- 
seven tons, test 1 6.0 per cent sugar and 82.6 per cent purity. 
Such fields would return to the grower over a hundred dol- 
lars per acre and give to the factory nearly three hundred 
dollars worth of sugar per acre. 
COMPARISON OF 1 897 WITH PREVIOUS YEARS. 
Sugar beets have been raised on the Station farm and 
in various parts of Colorado for the past nine years. The 
records of the analyses include many high and many low 
results. The records from outside the Station are not ac- 
companied with the dates when the samples were dug, or any 
statement of the ripeness of the crop, so it is not possible 
to tell whether the low analyses are due to the poor quality 
of the crop or to the early date at which the samples were 
taken. 
The different varieties of beets raised at the Station in 
1897 agree in quality quite closely with the samples of pre- 
vious years, when the samples were taken at the same date 
or stage of growth. Judged by this standard, the year 1897 
was the same or a little poorer than previous years. 
In all the states that have factories, and raise beets on 
a large scale, the universal report is that the year 1897 h^-S 
been exceptionally poor; indeed about the worst known 
since the factories started. Sipce this report comes from 
Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico, east, west and south of 
Colorado, it is probable that in this state it was not any 
better than an average year. 
METHODS USED PY BEET GROWERS. 
There are certain principles of beet growing that have 
been learned by experience and by experiments in this 
country and in Europe, that are considered as essential to 
the production of the best beets. It is undoubtedly true that 
these principles are correct, and that the beet growers of 
