50 The Colorado Experiment Station 
notable quantities of soda cannot be attributed to the action of the 
sodic nitrate. The chlorin in the ashes of the Austrian beets was 
not uniformally increased. We see that in six cases out of nine it 
was increased and in three it was not. These facts do not help us 
explain the large amount of chlorin which forms about 20.0 percent 
of the injurious ash in our samples. 
The total nitrogen in these beets is low; 0.125 percent. The 
proteid nitrogen, precipitated by Stutzer’s reagent, is relatively high 
for Colorado beets, the other forms of nitrogen, ammonic, amid, 
amino and nitric, are low. The nitric nitrogen, i. e., nitrogen pres¬ 
ent in the form of nitric acid, is present in many beets in traces only. 
Ruempler quotes Bresler as having found 0.0065 an d 0.0039 per¬ 
cent in two samples of beets and states that Herzfeld found it only in 
traces. It is stated on the other hand that some French beets have 
been found to be relatively rich in it. This last fact has been attrib¬ 
uted to their use of latrine as a manure. 
The samples which we are discussing have been presented for 
the purpose of finding out as nearly as we may what kind of beets 
we are justified in expecting under our ordinary conditions of soil, 
climate and all the other things which constitute our agricultural 
conditions and one of these as I have shown in Bulletins 155, 160 and 
178, is the frequent if not almost universal occurrence of very un¬ 
usual amounts of nitrates in our soils. 
In the case represented by analyses No. XI and XII we have 
beets grown on virgin soil under rather adverse cultural conditions, 
but the beets are very good in quality and the yield was 14 tons per 
acre. 
Analyses XIII and XIV represent beets, varieties WZR and 
WER, grown on as good land as we have, with a good supply of 
water, good cultivation, and during a favorable season, 1911. We 
find the beets large in size, fairly rich in sugar, also in dry matter, 
low in ash. low in total nitrogen and low in injurious ash and in¬ 
jurious nitrogenous compounds; the former amounting to 2.37 and 
2.44 and the latter to 3.85 and 4.04 parts per 100 parts of sugar. 
These are, according to the criteria adopted, excellent beets. The 
nitric nitrogen, however, is present in easily determinable quantities 
and is higher than that of the Michigan beets or those from Fort 
Collins grown in 1910. These are samples taken from the check 
plots of some experiments and we will return to them later and 
will discuss more fully the conditions under which they were grown. 
Analysis XV represents beets grown in 1910 on an entirely 
different soil, a check plot in an experimental series. The soil is a 
calcareous clayey one somewhat difficult to manipulate. The water 
supply for this land is at all times abundant. The rainfall for the 
growing season, April to September, was 9.58 inches. The pre- 
