Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 161 
course began immediately, but could not be restored for those beets 
in the eight weeks of the season, which events proved were remain¬ 
ing. It would be interesting to know what the results of various 
degrees of partial defoliation would be, this would more perfectly 
imitate the action of the leaf-spot. We reserve this for the future. 
The results of our fertilizer experiments were so divergent that 
we can use them to prove almost anything, except that they did some 
material good. Measured by the percentage of sugar, the injurious 
ash and injurious nitrogen per 100 sugar in comparison with those 
of the check plot, they did no good, but rather some harm. 
We have seen the effects produced by excessive quantities of 
nitrates under conditions which leave no room for doubt in regard 
to them. We presented the composition of beets grown on good 
ground in the Arkansas Valley and also such as were produced on 
bad ground. We find that a sample of beets harvested 3 Nov. 1910, 
grown on a sandy loam, well located and free from all apparent ob¬ 
jections, thoroughly cultivated and abundantly supplied with water, 
contained sugar 12.7, dry substance 20.0, pure ash in beet 0.7176, 
phosphoric acid in beet 0.03342, total nitrogen 0.25215, nitric nitro¬ 
gen 0.04537 percent, injurious ash 3.703 and injurious nitrogen 
1.07246 parts per 100 of sugar. The bad land referred to con¬ 
tained no free water within five feet of the surface but it was very 
rich in nitrates. The sample here given w.as grown in a bad, but 
not the worst section of this bad land, sugar 10.2, dry substance 
18.0, pure ash in beet 1.06, phosphoric acid in beet 0.02732, total 
nitrogen 0.30675, nitric nitrogen 0.0726 percent, injurious ash 
9.0421 and injurious nitrogen 1.7829 parts per 100 sugar. The 
phosphoric acid in the pure ash of this sample was only 4.659 percent 
and the beets were dressed with superphosphate at the rate of 1,000 
pounds per acre. 
In addition to these details of composition we have previously 
seen that beets grown with excessive nitrates produced thick juices 
of very low coefficient of purity, even when grown on the very best 
land at our disposal, and under conditions which were in every re¬ 
spect favorable. The depression of the coefficient of purity cor¬ 
responded to an increased production of molasses over that of rea¬ 
sonably good beets of three percent or more. In addition to these 
facts we have our Colorado molasses carrying nitric nitrogen equiva¬ 
lent to a maximum of 28.88 percent of its total. The deterioration 
in the beets is characterized by the falling off of approximately three 
percent in the average sugar content, by yielding juices difficult to 
work and the production of too much molasses. This molasses is 
rich in nitric nitrogen as we have seen. We find the properties of 
the beets, whether studied in separate samples from the field or on 
the larger scale of factory practice agreeing in every respect with our 
