Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 143 
Our experiments of 1911 were made on land more than suffi¬ 
ciently well supplied with nitrogen, especially in the form of nitric 
nitrogen. This statement assumes that the facts pertaining to the 
presence of nitric nitrogen established for fallow spots in the beet- 
field in 1910 and in fallow ground adjacent to the beet plots in 1911 
apply in the same measure to the ground actually occupied by the 
beets, which is an assumption and not a proven fact, but on this 
assumption the beets in 1911 had at their disposal up to 13 Sept., the 
date on which we sampled the fallow land, which, though cultivated, 
had not been irrigated, not less nitric nitrogen than the equivalent of 
480 pounds of sodic nitrate in the top six inches of soil. The nitric 
nitrogen averaged 3.24 percent of the total nitrogen, which was 
about 0.134 percent. The determinations were made on 10 com¬ 
posite samples which included 124 subsamples. Experiments have 
shown that the application of this quantity of nitre, about 500 
pounds, applied by or before 1 May, was, under the conditions of 
our experiments in the Arkansas Valley, more than sufficient to pro¬ 
duce the maximum beneficial effects and was, in fact, somewhat ob¬ 
jectionable. It has been stated that another section of this field pro¬ 
duced in 1910 a big growth of leaves and a small crop of poor beets, 
13.3 percent sugar. Had I been able to obtain land of my own 
choice I would not have used this, but this was kindly placed at my 
disposal by the Department of Agronomy, and it was the very best 
that they had. 
My immediate object was to determine the effects of an exces¬ 
sive supply of nitrates upon the beets subsequent to the period of 
their greatest activity in appropriating nitrogen, which is during the 
months of June and July. The results give us at the same time a 
clear presentation of the effects of nitre upon the growth and com¬ 
position of the beet. That nitrates prolong the period of growth 
and stimulate vegetation has long been established as a fact, our 
object was not to reconfirm this, but to study their effects upon the 
composition of the beets. The effects of an application of nitre at 
the rate of 250 pounds per acre on 4 Aug. made themselves manifest 
in the color and growth of the leaves in from ten to fourteen days to 
such an extent that it attracted the attention of casual observers. 
This continued to become more marked through the remainder of 
the season till the leaves were killed by frost. In fact it was more 
evident on 15 Oct. than on 15 Sept, because the beets to which no 
application of nitrates had been made, showed clearly the process of 
maturation, whereas the others did not, and this is one of the bad 
effects of the nitre, i. e., that it very materially delays the matura¬ 
tion of the beets, a statement which I have previously made in other 
forms. The effects upon the crop and its composition under these 
conditions, all of which were such as to tend to conceal or lessen the 
