Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates i 13 
suits corroborate the observations previously made upon the samples 
of this field for the real coefficient of the thick juice from these beets 
is 88.26, which is at least one point too low for beets grown on such 
land and in the perfect condition that these beets appeared to be at 
the time that they were sliced. We concluded from our analytical 
data that the beets grown with 250 and 500 pounds of sodic nitrate 
per acre were our best beets and that those grown with 1,000 pounds 
per acre were the poorest beets and that the excess of sodic nitrate 
had producd this effect. We see in considering the real coefficients 
of purity of these thick juices, probably the best measure of these 
effects, that by the application of 750, 1,000 and 1,250 pounds of 
sodic nitrate to the acre we have depressed it 1.89 points below a 
field sample grown as a check but which itself is at least 1.25 points 
below what the coefficient of a reasonably good thick juice should 
be. The lowest coefficient is found for the beets grown with 1,000 
pounds sodic nitrate per acre. The beets grown in Field 7, else¬ 
where designated as bad land, gave a thick juice of only 69.56 coeffi¬ 
cient of purity, which is scarcely 3.5 points above the conventional 
limit for molasses. The amino and nitric nitrogen in these juices 
present the same facts with still greater emphasis, the nitric nitrogen 
ranging from 13.38 percent in the best sample to 49.45 percent of 
the total nitrogen in the worst sample. 
I stated in an earlier paragraph that our beets, specifically the 
beets of the Arkansas Valley, produced too much molasses. I think 
that the sugar technologist will agree that a thick juice with a real 
coefficient of purity of 87 or 86 will produce a large amount of 
molasses and concerning a coefficient of 69.6 there can be no ques¬ 
tion. None of these juices were boiled, so we did not study the 
properties of the filmasses produced from such beets but Mr. H. E. 
Zitkowski, the Chief Chemist at the factory, told me that he tried the 
thick juice of No. 7 011 a small scale and that it was all that the 
coefficient of purity indicated, very bad. 
The amount of molasses that sound beets of good quality should 
produce is somewhat difficult to ascertain. The statements made 
concerning German beets often pertain to houses producing only 
raw sugar which carries some of the molasses. In others, where 
the various green syrups are boiled several times and the saccharate 
is used in liming the thin juice, it is difficult to tell how much molas¬ 
ses the beets are producing, but in non-Steffens houses, producing 
granulated sugar, we can obtain a very fair approximation to a cor¬ 
rect answer. For our purposes, I will assume that beets with 16.0 
percent sugar and of good quality ought not to produce more than 
5.5 percent of their weight of molasses. While this is to the best of 
of my knowledge, a fair estimate, it does not matter in this case 
whether the estimate is a point too high or a half point too low, be- 
