111 
Deterioration Sugar Beets Due to Nitrates 
beets. Again we found in the same tract of land but not in the same 
place in April nitric nitrogen equivalent to 1,000 pounds of sodic 
nitrate in the surface two inches. We showed in Bulletin 155 that 
at the end of the season and even in the early part of the winter that 
our lands, especially the beet fields of the Arkansas Valley, con¬ 
tained in 1909 quantities of nitrates reaching 1,902 pounds in the 
surface six inches of soil. The presence at times of sufficient quan¬ 
tities of nitrates in our soils to produce these effects cannot be 
doubted, and the effects are those who are produced by excessive 
quantities of nitrates. 
We have not heretofore laid any special stress upon the pres¬ 
ence of nitric nitrogen in all of the samples of our Colorado beets 
but the results show plainly that an excess of nitrates increases the 
amount of this form of nitrogen in the beet from 0.0009 percent, 
the minimum found 111 a Colorado beet, to 0.04983 percent for beets 
grown with the application of 1,000 pounds of Chile-saltpetre and a 
maximum of 0.08743 percent in beets grown in very bad ground. 
There are other very striking effects shown by the composition of 
the ash, but we will take these up later. 
It has been shown that the beet plant draws upon the nitrogen 
of the soil most heavily in June and July. Professor Remy has 
shown that to produce a crop of 44 tons, together with the tops per 
hectare (2^ acres) requires 455.4 pounds of nitrogen. The nitro¬ 
gen appropriation is distributed as follows in respect to times : May, 
4.4 pounds; June, 112.0 pounds; July, 212.2 pounds; August, 48.0 
pounds ; September 44.0 pounds, and October 35.2 pounds. In our 
experiments with sodic nitrate the last 250 pounds were applied on 
27 July. This would appear to be too late to produce any decided 
effect upon the crop, and we find the maximum effect produced by 
the application of 1,000 pounds per acre, the last portion of which 
was applied 011 22 June. The condition of an early supply of nitre 
may or may not be met in the field as it has not yet been determined 
during what period the most liberal amount of nitrates may be fur¬ 
nished to the beets by the soil, i. e., without artificial applications. 
It is almost certain that this will differ in various pieces of land. 
Our highest figures for beet fields have been obtained in early win¬ 
ter or spring, but we have not as yet made any systematic study of 
this point. In subsequent paragraphs, however, we will give the 
results obtained by applying nitrates to beets beginning 1 August 
and continuing at intervals of 14 days, till the plots had received a 
total corresponding to 750 pounds per acre. 
The experiments with sodic nitrate in 1910 were inaugurated 
with the intention of running the beets thus produced in an experi¬ 
mental plant to see whether we actually produced the bad working 
qualities in these beets which had been observed in the beets grown 
