Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 171 
that we could select, were tested in an experimental sugar plant and 
the process carried to the production of thick juices. The real co¬ 
efficients of purity of these were, for the beets grown with 250 
pounds nitrate per acre, 87.91, for those grown with 500 pounds 
per acre, 88.3, for those grown with 750 pounds 88.6, for those 
grown with 1,000 pounds 86.37, and for those grown with 1,250 
pounds per acre 86.43. We have here a depression of the real 
coefficient of purity in the thick juice of 1.93 points, which signifies a 
tremendous increase in the amount of sugar that will go into the 
first green syrup or what amounts to the same thing a great de¬ 
crease in the amount of granulated sugar obtained in the first 
crystallization. These results indicate that this cause, nitrates in the 
soil, is fully adequate to account for the production of an undue 
amount of molasses which is another of the undesirable qualities of 
these beets, because it overtaxes the crystalizer capacity of the fac¬ 
tories and necessitates the recovery of a large percentage of the 
sugar by the Steffens process. 
The fourth class of beets studied were such as were grown on 
very bad soil. We had several objects in view, principally, how¬ 
ever, to determine the quality of the beets produced and the effects 
of phosphoric acid, potash and salt, sodic chlorid, upon beets grown 
under these conditions. The land chosen was excellent for these 
purposes, for owing to the fact that it had a decided slope it enabled 
us to make our observations on more and less objectionable land, 
which involved no questions of composition, etc., at the same time 
The depth to the water-plane was determined by borings made at 
the end of September and was found to be five feet in the lowest por¬ 
tion of the cultivated area. This depth was only one foot above the 
bottom of the drainage ditch. This soil was sampled to a depth of 
four inches in two sections each two inches deep. The potash, solu¬ 
ble in hydrochloric acid, the phosphoric acid, total nitrogen and 
nitirc nitogen were determined in these samples. The averages of 
the six determinations of potash, phosphoric acid and total nitrogen 
were for the potash 1.15 (0.874 to 1.275), f° r phosphoric acid 
0.1461 (from 0.0765 to 0.1913), and for total nitrogen 0.1081 
(from 0.0850 to 0.1480). The supply of potash and phosphoric 
acid is abundant but that of total nitrogen is rather moderate. The 
ratio of the nitric nitrogen found to the total nitrogen was 19.00 
percent in the top two inches of the worst, and 3.5 percent in the 
second two inches of the best portion of the field. In parts per 
million of the soil the nitric nitrogen ranged from 30 parts in the 
second two inches of the third and second sections to 280 parts in the 
top two inches of the first or worst section of the land. These sam¬ 
ples were composite, each containing eight subordinate samples. 
The growth of the beet tops on this field was very luxuriant, they 
