56 The Colorado Experiment Station 
beets were irrigated once and some twice, but I could detect no dif¬ 
ference at all in these plots. We observe that the dry matter is no 
more than average, if quite that, that the sugar is low, that the in¬ 
jurious nitrogen is high and that the nitric nitrogen was 0.02 per¬ 
cent of the fresh beet. The ash shows a rather large amount of 
both chlorin and soda. The land on which these beets grew is free 
from alkali and free from excessive water, it is, in short, excellent 
land, but the beets were poor in both crop and quality. Analyses 
XVIII, XIX and XX represent samples taken from check plots in 
other experiments of 1910. Analyses XVIII and XIX represent 
beets grown on the land chosen as a check plot for our experiments 
with nitrates. The samples taken from this plot throughout the sea¬ 
son, however, were so erratic -that I felt that it would be unwise to 
attach much, if any, importance to them, therefore, as a further 
check I took a sample from an adjacent piece of land which had not 
been fertilized at all. The land on which Nos. XVIII and XIX 
were grown had received a dressing of manure at the rate of 10 tons 
per acre, which had been plowed under to the depth of 10 inches. 
The previous crop on this land was beets without any fertilizer. 
This soil was submitted to a complete analysis, which will be given 
in another place. It contains potash 0.76, phosphoric acid 0.108, 
total nitrogen 0.11, which is fully an average for Colorado soils. 
The available plant food is quite sufficient, if not really abundant, 
for instance the available phosphoric acid in the samples taken the 
last of March amounted to 84 pounds per acre-foot, which is almost 
exactly one-fiftieth of the total. The soil is a light loam somewhat 
gravelly in spots. The soil on which the beets, represented by 
Analysis XX grew, was still lighter, almost sandy. Our analyses 
show that these samples are all poor in quality, not only is the sugar 
from medium to low in percentage, but the injurious nitrogen com¬ 
pounds are decidedly high, 7.5, 8.3 and 10.7 parts for each 100 parts 
of sugar. 
In considering the quality of these beets as indicated by their 
composition it is not enough -to consider them as samples grown on 
apparently good ground without the application of any'fertilizer, 
but we must also bear in mind that they are grown in different sec¬ 
tions of the state, some of them quite distant from one another. 
This happens to be the case with the pair XI and XII and the pair 
XIII and XIV. The former pair was grown about 172 miles south 
and 162 miles east or about 240 miles in a straight line southeast of 
the latter and at an elevation of almost 2,000 feet less. These fac¬ 
tors added to the differences in soils, water-supply, preparation of 
ground and subsequent cultivation forbid that we should draw our 
conclusions with too great a degree of confidence; but, at the same 
time, they lend weight to those features of inferiority which are 
