— 10 — 
This last statement ought to be modified to some extent, be- 
cause there is no humus, or other substance, to ameliorate the action 
of the alkali, in which respect our tests do not resemble the true soil 
conditions. The humus in our Colorado soils is so small that it 
would, under all conditions, be a question whether its infiuence 
would be great enough to be observable. The result of this experi- 
ment was that the beet seed germinate more quickly in soils con- 
taining less than 0.10 per cent, of sodic carbonate, than in soils con- 
taining no alkali, but that the young plants cannot survive in the 
presence of 0.05 per cent, of black alkali, or sodic carbonate. 
THE CULTIVATION AND COST. 
General instructions for the proper cultivation of the sugar beet 
have been furnished to every section adapted to its culture, so that 
a repetition of them here would be useless, and I shall confine my 
statements on the subject of cultivation to a brief account of our op- 
erations, which I make that our conditions may be more fully ap- 
preciated. 
The ground was plowed and subsoiled to a depth of 14 inches; 
it was then harrowed, planked and replowed, and still its condition 
was not a desirable one. 
The seeds were drilled in, with the rows two feet apart, and the 
varieties three feet apart. The depth to which the seeds were put in 
was between two and three inches, but owing to the uneven condi- 
tion of the ground this varied greatly. The plots were all planted 
on May 18,1897. A rain storm set in on this day and the weather 
continued rainy until June 11. The beets began to come up on 
June 6, but, notwithstanding the favorable weather, they did not 
come up well. This was not to be explained by there being too 
much rain on a poorly drained soil, for on those portions which were 
under water for from three to five days there were many more plants 
than on some of the higher portions. The weather being rainy un- 
til June 11, the ground did not bake badly before the first hoeing, 
which was begun on June 14 ; but from this time on the soil baked 
badly and was very difficult to keep in any sort of tilth. 
THE APPEARANCE OF INSECTS. 
On Juno the 16th, I noticed a striped beetle, Systena tseniata, at- 
tacking the leaves. These beetles seemed to come from an adjacent 
fallow plot, which was covered with poverty weed. By June 21, 
they had become quite abundant and done considerable damage. 
While the plants were quite young they were attacked by the 
leaf hoppers, Agallia uhleri, Agallia sanguineolenta and Agallia cinerea. 
Prof. Gillette, who determined these insects for me, is of the opinion 
that these hoppers did no appreciable harm, except while the plants 
were small. 
