149 
Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 
son of the excellent beets from Montana with the bad beets grown 
in Colorado to show the effects of nitrates in the soil upon the quality 
of the sugar beet. In this case we shall use the good effects of a ben¬ 
eficial quantity of nitrate to show the bad effects of an excessive 
quantity. In this case all questions of differences of climate, soil, 
water-supply, cultivation, time of sowing, harvesting, variety, attack 
of leaf-spot or any other favorable or unfavorable condition are elim¬ 
inated for the beets were grown on two acres of land in the same 
field separated by an intervening acre. Both plots received a dress- 
ing of sodic nitrate, the first one given 250 and the second 750 
pounds per acre; sugar 16.5-13.4; dry substance 22.4-20.6; pure 
ash in beet 0.51948-0.82238; phosphoric acid 0.03750-0.03588; 
sodic chlorid 0.03782-0.10638; sodic oxid 0.20800-0.18359; total 
nitrogen 0.14485-0.29610; nitric nitrogen o.00144-0.04143 ; injur¬ 
ious ash pei 100 sugar 3.1267-4.^812; injurious nitrogen per 100 
sugar 0.36424-1.29250; ratio proteid nitrogen to total nitrogen in 
press juice 31.0-17.0. 
The results which we have just reviewed are such as we meet 
with on good lands with which, under ordinary conditions, no fault 
would be found. The next results are such as we meet with on bad 
gi ound, not pool ground but bad ground, land in which we meet 
with conditions involving the questions of seepage and alkali. This 
land is very rich in nitre. In Colorado Experiment Station Bulle- 
T 55 » P- 2 T I stated, “Me find the nitrates present in soils where 
there is a great deal of moisture, but in places where there is too 
much water, the nitre does not appear. In little valleys and saucer 
shaped depressions in which the lower portions are too wet, there is 
no visible alkali, then follows a zone where white alkali abounds and 
above this the nitre is formed. I do not mean to say that there may 
not be nitre mixed with the white alkali, but that the nitre in such 
cases appears in higher ground than that on which the white alkali 
usually appears. Furthermore, it is not intended that anyone shall 
infer that it is only in valleys and depressions that the nitre occurs.” 
Again in the same bulletin, 155, p. 12, I refer to a condition met with 
in the soil which I described as muddy, and state, “The soil is very 
wet at a depth of two and a half feet and forms a real mud from 
this point downward, but at a depth of six feet the water came in so 
slowly that in order to fill a two-gallon jug we had to let the hole’ 
stand open over night. * * * I had never seen anything similar 
to this condition before I began to study this subject. * * * * 
It is surprising that the soil can be so wet and muddy for 3^ feet 
and that we should be unable to find a proper water-table within six 
feet of the surface.” We met with somewhat similar conditions in 
portions of this land. Borings were made to determine the height 
of the water-plane 14 Nov. 1910; it was met with in the lowest 
