Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 155 
0.04062-0.06542. Total nitrogen 0.17940-0.15270; nitric nitrogen, 
0.00348-0.00141. Injurious ash per 100 sugar, 2.4190-2.87730; 
injurious nitrogen, 0.44243-0.34711, and the ratio of the albumin 
nitrogen to total nitrogen in fhe press juice is 36 and 40 per cent 
respectively. 
The object had in view in this bulletin has been to discover if 
possible the cause for the falling off of the beets grown in some sec¬ 
tions in sugar content and in general factory qualities. That such 
a falling old has actually taken place is a fact beyond dispute. We 
have put this falling off at about three percent in sugar, and the gen¬ 
eral deterioration in factory qualities may be expressed in terms of 
the molasses produced at a minimum of two percent, calculated on 
the beets cut. There has been a variation from year to year. The 
year 1911, for instance, showed a considerable improvement in this 
respect. I may remark that the samples of molasses examined in 
1911 contained much less nitric nitrogen than the samples from pre¬ 
ceding campaigns, except from one factory. We have purposely 
desisted from taking up in detail the effects produced by the fer¬ 
tilizers used in our attempt to find, if possible, in an experimental 
way, some feasible means for bringing back the good qualities shown 
by the beets from 1893 to 1904. The real problem whose solution 
we have attempted is baffling, as the variety of causes assigned as 
producing this condition suggests, yet it seems proper that we should 
discuss briefly some of the salient features of these results from the 
standpoint of composition wholly irrespective of their technical 
aspects. 
We were fully convinced from the beginning that we could not 
properly use German or Austrian or any available data as applicable 
to our beets. The German and Bohemian data vary considerably. 
I have found no recent complete analyses of German beets. The 
most satisfactory data that has come to my notice is contained in 
the Siebenter-Bericht ueber die Versuchswirtschaft Lauchstaedt, 
1910, from which it appears that sugar beets grown with 528 pounds 
nitrate of soda, 600 pounds superphosphate, 264 pounds 40 percent 
potash salt per acre contained, as the average of seven years, 
0.19486 percent nitrogen, 0.06923 percent phosphoric acid and 
0.17948 percent of potash in the fresh beet. With the application 
of nitrate alone 0.20188 percent nitrogen, 0.04431 percent phos¬ 
phoric acid and 0.16511 percent potash. With no fertilizer 0.20132 
percent nitrogen, 0.05479 percent phosphoric acid and 0.16959 per¬ 
cent potash. The average percentages of sugar given for these 
three series are, respectively, 17.93, 17.3 2 and 18.29, and those for 
the dry substance in the beets are 25.64, 24.65 and 26.09 percent. 
R. F. Strohmer and O. Fallada give in Oesterreichisch-Ungarische 
Zeitschrift fuer Zuckerindustrie und Laudwirtschaft, XI Jahrgang, 
