— 6 — 
sets were taken in the same way. Every tenth beet was taken from 
two contiguous rows until about a dozen beets had been dug. These 
were at once topped, cleaned by brushing or scraping, or in a few 
cases by washing, and weighed on scales accurate to the quarter of 
an ounce. If they were analyzed the same or the next day no 
account was taken of the small amount (about two per cent.) that 
they had dried out between digging and analyzing. If they stood 
longer than two days before they were analyzed, a correction was 
made in both total solids and sugar for the water that had dried 
from the beets after the second day. All of the analyses given in 
this section on methods of raising beets and in the section of this 
bulletin on tests of different sources of seed are the corrected 
analyses after making allowance for the drying out after the second 
day. In actual factory practice the beets seldom reach the factory 
until the third day after digging, and often not until much longer 
periods. So that it is probable that had these beets been raised and 
delivered to a factory they would have dried out a little more and 
tested a little higher than the figures given in this bulletin. 
About fifty samples were taken the last of September, and an 
equal number October 22. The average of the first set is 15.43 per 
cent of sugar in the beet and 78.6 purity. The second 
set averaged 16.38 sugar and 78.1 purity, thus indicating a small 
gain in sugar and slight loss in purity between the first and second 
samplings. If these fifty tests are divided into five sets, 
according to the dates of planting, as will be given later, the last 
four sets give 14.97 sugar and 77.2 purity for the first samples, and 
16.24 sugar with 77.6 purit}' for the samples three weeks later. 
Thus, they show an increase in sugar with but little change in pur¬ 
ity. The samples from the first planting average 17.28 sugar and 
84.2 purity for the first set, and 16.96 sugar with 79.7 purity for the 
last samples. A study of the ground gives some explanation of the 
cause of these differences. The ground first planted was so damp 
at the time it was worked, that it was somewhat packed by the 
working, and consequently suffered more from the late drought. At 
the time the samples were taken, the last of September, the leaves 
of the beets on this part of the field were so badly wilted as to touch 
the ground. The beets were really dried out in the ground. When 
the rain came they absorbed water and showed a lower test, with a 
change in purity, from a slight second growth. 
It can be said, then, that, on the whole, the beets gain one per 
cent, of sugar during the three weeks between the two times of 
sampling, but there are so many apparent exceptions to this gen-, 
eral statement, due to differences in sampling and analyzing, that it 
is deemed best to use the analyses of both sets of samples. 
