15 ^ 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
taken, one of them from about the beets, actually beneath the leaves 
was between 15 and 17 tons per acre. 
The experiments made with sodic nitrate in 1910 and ioii to 
show its effects upon the quality of beets and upon the character of 
the tmck juice produced in the factory, together with the properties 
o samples of beets grown upon apparently good land, and also such 
as were grown upon evidently bad land show by the character and 
uniformity of the results that it is more than reasonable to attribute 
the falling off m the quality of the beets in the Arkansas Valley to 
the formation of excessive amounts of nitrates in the soil during 
tne season and not to climatic conditions or to the effects of the leaf- 
spot. J hese are most certainly factors which have a decided in¬ 
fluence upon the crop, specifically upon the bad qualities of the beets 
I hey cause the very general production of beets with low percent¬ 
ages of sugar and phosphoric acid, with a high percentage of total 
nitrogen, especially of nitric nitrogen, and a low ratio of albumin 
mhogen to the total nitrogen in the juice, with a high percentage of 
dim. 1 his results in the production of abnormally high percentages 
of molasses, 7.5 to even 10 percent from beets which have not been 
frozen and subsequently deteriorated. 
/I he general applicability of this statement is shown by the 
nitric nitrogen in the fifteen samples of Colorado molasses as'com¬ 
pared with the six from other sources, especially with the four from 
ohemia. the maximum ratio that we find in the latter for the 
nitric to total nitrogen is 0.37, while the minimum found for this 
ratl ° 00 ai E .9 oIorado molasses examined is 10.66 and the maximum 
is 26.68 VY e need not go farther in the discussion of these results 
.he big fact that many of our Colorado molasses are very rich in 
nitrates is evident In this connection, however, I may mention a 
tact observed by Dr. Potvhet in studying the thick juices prepared 
m our experimental work, i. e„ that the nitrates in the dry sub¬ 
stance 01 the thick juice was lower than it should have been to cor¬ 
respond with the nitrates found in the dried cossettes. This loss 
was very considerable, amounting to 50 percent in the case of the 
last beets discussed. In view of this actual loss of nitrates observed 
and die possibility of its taking place in the factory on a large scale 
as well as m the battery samples, the very large amount of nitric 
nitrogen found m our molasses becomes even more suggestive than 
it all eady is of the large amount in the beets worked. 
The deterioration in the quality of the crop in' the Arkansas 
^ ?. e : y t,le P ast eight years has not, of course, been accepted 
with indifference and no effort made to check it, on the contrarv. the 
situation has been recognized as serious by the managers o'f the 
plants who have been responsible for the success of the" companies 
opeiatmg in the valley. The cause of the trouble was not reco"- 
