— 23 — 
The experiments agree in showing a loss of rather more than 
38 per cent, in 17 days, and also quite a uniformity in the rate of 
loss, with the greatest irregularity during the first days of the exper- 
iments. The maximum of loss, for any single 24 hours, is 5.4 per 
cent, of the weight of the beets at the beginning of the 24 hours. 
It fell from this to about 2 per cent, for each 24 hours, where it re- 
mained. Dr. Maxwell made the loss equal to 20 percent, of the orig- 
inal weight in seven days. I make it rather more, due, probably, 
to differences of conditions, but there is a substantial agreement be- 
tween our experiments. 
The farmer will appreciate these figures more fully, perhaps, 
when they are converted into other terms. They mean this to him, 
i. e., if he has a crop of beets of 20 tons to the acre, and delays 
marketing them for 24 hours, he has lost one ton, or one twentieth of 
his crop, and if he delays a week he will lose one fifth of his crop, 
by weight. The percentage of sugar will be higher, but the tonnage 
less, by the amount of evaporation, whatever that may be. 
It is evident that such large losses totally destroy the value of 
samples sent to the Station for analysis, unless great care is exercised 
by the sender, that the beets reach us in as fresh a state as possible, 
and if they are not quite fresh, the analysis has no value to either 
the sender or to anyone else. In illustration of this, I give the sugar 
content of the samples used in the experiments just detailed. A 
sufficient number of beets were taken from each lot, at the beginning 
of the experiments, to give us representative samples, and the sugar 
was determined in them while the samples were perfectly fresh. 
The sample used in experiment No. 1 contained 9.8 per cent., 
that used in experiment No. 2 contained 9.3 per cent., and that used 
in experiment No. 3 contained 14.4 per cent, of sugar. At the end 
of the experiments, the 9.8 per cent, of No. 1 had become 15.5 per 
cent., the 9.3 per cent, of No. 2 had become 12. 6 per cent., and the 
14.4 per cent, of No. 3 had become 21.6 per cent. 
The difference in percentage, shown in samples analyzed im- 
mediately after being pulled, and after exposure in the field for 24 
hours, was almost exactly 1 per cent. This difference would make 
the average percentage in the beets from our plots 13.3 per cent, and 
13.7 per cent., instead of 12.3 per cent, and 12.7 per cent., respect- 
ively. 
THE LOSS OF SUGAR ON LONG DRYING. 
This question is not of so great and immediate interest to the 
raiser, unless the factory should refuse to buy and hold the beets, 
but require the raiser to either hold them until the factory could 
work them up, or, in some way, make the raiser share the loss dur- 
ing storage. 
