142 The Colorado Experiment Station 
upon the content of nitric nitrogen. On 1 Sept, we found in these 
beets nitric nitrogen equal to 0.01925 and 0.01670 percent, in the 
normally matured beets on 8 Nov. we found 0.00827 and 0.00746 
and in the defoliated beets harvested the same day, 8 Nov., we found 
0.01367 and 0.01584 percent. It is evident that the leaves on the 
normally matured beets have played an important part in eliminating 
or transforming the nitric nitrogen between 1 Sept, and 20 Oct., 
when the leaves were killed by a heavy freeze. The last samples 
of leaves were taken 12 Oct., when we find that the blades of beet 
leaves to which no nitrate had been applied contained no nitric nitro¬ 
gen, but the stems contained 0.01956 and 0.01797 percent for the 
respective varieties. On 1 Sept., five days before we defoliated the 
beets, both the blades and the stems contained nitric nitrogen, but on 
28 Sept., the next date when the blades and stems were analyzed 
separately, the blades contained none which, from the amount found 
for the whole leaf on 14 Sept., was probably the case at this time. 
At all events the nitric nitrogen disappeared wholly from the blades 
between 1 and 28 Sept., but the stems were still quite rich, 0.01956 
and 0.01797 on 12 Oct., when the nitric nitrogen in the beet had 
fallen to o 00503 and 0.00870, quite as low as we found it on 8 Nov., 
the latest sample of the season. The decrease of nitric nitrogen in 
the defoliated beets from 6 Sept, till 8 Nov. was not enough to be 
proportional to the increased weight of the beet, so that it seems 
probable that the beets continued to take up some nitric nitrogen 
after defoliation but that no transformation of it took place. This 
detail statement is made for the purpose of presenting as forcefully 
as possible the question whether the leaf-spot disease may not by de¬ 
stroying the foliage to the extent that it sometimes does, be the 
cause of excessive amounts of nitric nitrogen which we find in our 
beets ? 1 think that the facts adduced in this connection go very far 
to establish it as a fact, that given the nitrates in the beets at the time 
the fungus destroyed the foliage that it would remain in the beets, 
to a greater or less extent, depending upon the sufficiency of the 
foliage which may have escaped the fungus injury to carry on the 
normal functions of the beet, and in this way the leaf-spot might 
account for the presence of nitric nitrogen in the beets and the 
molasses made from them, but this only accounts for the failure of 
the maturing beet to eliminate, if I may use the term, the nitric nitro¬ 
gen, but does not account for its presence at the time of the injury, 
any more than the cutting off of the leaves accounts for the nitric 
nitrogen present in the beets on 6 Sept. It, however, does account 
for the fact that we found the nitric nitrogen in the beets on 8 Nov., 
but nothing more. The other changes in the composition of the 
beet are not those which we find in the beets of the Arkansas Valley. 
We will go into the details of these a little later. 
