— 30 — 
together with the first lot. The third lot was piled up in 
the field, covered with a few inches of dirt and allowed to 
remain for five weeks before analysis. 
The results are as follows. 
Per cent sugar. Per cent purity. 
Kept one day in a cool place,. . 14.0 82 
Left one day in the open field,. 14. g 79 
Covered five weeks with dirt,. . 14.7 84 
The results show that the beets dried considerably dur- 
ing the one day exposed to the sun, but that in this case and 
also where covered with dirt, the loss was merely one of 
water, the sugar in the beet remaining without fermentation. 
This was with ripe beets taken from a dry soil. No 
judgment can be drawn from this as to what would happen 
with unripe beets. 
On^ October 6th, two lots of beets were taken; one from 
a field fairly ripe and the other still green and growing. 
Half the beets in each lot were analyzed at once; the other 
half were weighed, wrapped tightly in paper and put on the 
ground in the cellar of the laboratory. Both lots were 
weighed each day for sixteen days, to note the loss in weight 
and then each was analyzed. 
In each case the beets lost one-twentieth of their weight 
in the first twenty-four hours or at the rate of a hundred 
pounds for each ton of beets. In five days each lot lost a 
little more than one-fifth of its weight. In sixteen days 
each lot lost thirty-eight pounds for every hundred pounds 
of original weight. 
The more nearly ripe beets tested, when put in the 
cellar 9.8 per cent sugar; at the end of sixteen days they had 
dried out until they tested 15.9 per cent sugar. When the 
weights are taken into consideration it is found that of the 
9.8 per cent of sugar in the original beets 9.55 per cent was 
still present, showing that the sugar had not fermented in 
the drying out and that the loss was merely one of water. 
The green beets tested 9.3 per cent sugar when taken 
from the held and 12.6 per cent sugar after drying sixteen 
days. Making the same calculation, shows that of the orig- 
inal 9.3 per cent sugar, only 7.7 remained, indicating a 
fermentation and a loss of one-sixth of the sugar. 
On January 3, 1898, some beets were dug that had been 
covered with straw for two months. They had started a 
slight second growth, but not enough to injure them for fac- 
tory use. After analyzing enough of these beets to get their 
average composition, the remainder were brought to the 
laboratory and left for one day exposed to the air. They 
