II 
Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 
reaching 18.3 percent in the perfectly fresh beet. In the second 
case we have the soil with 0.10 percent phosphoric acid, 0.72 percent 
potash and 0.091 percent of nitrogen producing according to the 
record of the factory, ten tons of beets with 16.0 percent of sugar. 
These facts are given to put the questions pertaining to the 
effects of alkali and seepage in a fuller light and to give us a basis 
of fact on which to found our judgment and to remove the necessity 
of accepting a current opinion which may be in part justified but 
which being based upon observation without a knowledge of the 
facts is for far the greater part unjustified. The general prevalence 
of the opinion, however, takes cognizance of a big fact that some¬ 
thing is amiss and two things are amiss. One fact is that continued 
excessive irrigation of the land has already produced a considerable 
amount of seepage and another is that in some districts the quality 
of the sugar beet has deteriorated materially within, the past seven 
or eight years.. It is perfectly natural that these results should be 
associated in the relation of cause and effect and this has happened 
without sufficient regard to the facts. 
In order that a better understanding of the importance of these 
facts may be had I will state that in 1899, which was prior to the 
opening of any sugar factory in the Arkansas Valley, the beets 
grown at our station at Rocky Ford ranged from 13.3 to 21.0 per¬ 
cent sugar with an average of 17.3 percent for the season. The 
number of samples analyzed was 52, the beets were wrapped in 
paper and sacked to prevent drying out. Another grower in the 
valley raised beets ranging from 15.3 to 21.2 percent with an aver¬ 
age of 17.5 percent. I have been informed on the best of authority 
that the factory average for the years 1900, 1901 and 1902, or for 
the first three campaigns, was 17.5 percent or thereabouts. From 
that time till the present the sugar content has gradually fallen till 
the factory average is about 14.5 percent, and some years less than 
this. As there are always many fields of excellent beets it is evi¬ 
dent that there must be very many beets below 14.0, probably even 
below 11.0 percent. These figures hold for the valley and do not 
pertain to any particular factory. While the average sugar content 
of these beets has fallen approximately 3.0 to 3.5 percent the beet 
seed breeders have improved the average beet by 1.1 percent since 
1903. (This was the amount in the increase from 1903-1908 ac¬ 
cording to Schulze and Lipochitz quoted by Stift and Gredinger, p. 
83.) It was to be expected that the farmer and the factory people 
would both become uneasy under such conditions and some answer 
had to be given to the serious question regarding the cause. My 
object is merely to state the situation so fully and clearly that the 
reader may realize that the problem is in the first place serious 
