Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 139 
whole valley in 1910. There are two facts which must be constantly 
borne in mind, one is that, for some reason, 1911 was a much more 
favorable year than 1910, that is the beets of 1911 worked much 
better than those of previous years, 1910 for instance, and that my 
experiments of 1911 were made at Fort Collins and not in the Ar¬ 
kansas Valley, in other words, that both the season and locality 
tended to produce beets of good quality, whereas my endeavor was 
to bring about the inferior quality so generally met with of late 
years in the Arkansas Valley. This applied to the experiments 
made with nitre as well as to those with defoliation. The results 
with nitre have been given in preceding paragraphs and the analyses 
of the check samples taken 8 Nov. have been given as analyses 
CLXX and CLXXII. Samples of these varieties were, taken im¬ 
mediately before defoliation and on 8 Nov. The analytical results 
obtained on these samples 1 Sept, and 8 Nov. were as given in table. 
It has already been stated that the yield of roots was depressed 
about 25 percent by the almost complete defoliation of the beets and 
that of the sugar not less than 35.7 percent in the case of the variety 
E R and apparently still more in the case of Z R. 
The effect upon the quality of the beets was to lower the per¬ 
centage of sugar, in the case of the variety E R, this decrease was 
1.3 percent, in that of the variety Z R it was 2.4 percent.- It also 
depressed the percentage of dry matter in the beets, in the case of 
E R 1.66 and in that of Z R 2.8 percent. It increased the pure ash 
in the beets very slightly, 0.003 in E R and 0.008 percent in Z R. 
It did not perceptibly affect the composition of the pure ash, the 
phosphoric acid in particular remaining very nearly the same, 10.175 
against 9.876 in E R and 10.932 against 10.855 percent in the case 
of Z R, which is apparently an important factor. The total nitro¬ 
gen in the beets was decidedly depressed, from 0.14882 to 0.12408 
in E R and from 0.14223 to 0.11286 percent in Z R. The injurious 
ash per 100 sugar was slightly increased, from 2.456 tot 2.668 in E R 
and from 2.565 to 3.133 in Z R. The injurious nitrogen per 100 
sugar was decreased from 0.362 to 0.326 in E R and from 0.323 to 
0.136 percent in Z R. The total nitrogen in the press juice was also 
lowered from 0.134 to 0.102 in E R and from 0.123 to 0.092 per¬ 
cent in Z R. The beets of these varieties which matured normally 
contained 0.00827 and 0.00746 percent nitric nitrogen, the defoliated 
beets contained 0.01367 and 0.01584 percent, approximately twice 
as much. The nitric nitrogen was evidently transformed in some 
manner in the normally developed beets but not in the defoliated 
ones to anything like the same extent as appears from the fact that 
on 1 Sept, the beets contained, E R 0.1925, Z R 0.01670, on 8 Nov. 
the defoliated beets contained, ER 0.01367, ZR 0.01584 percent, 
while the normally developed beets contained, E R, 0.00827 and 
