Sugar Beets. 
13 
come hard and dry after the irrigation of September 2. The crop, 
taking the whole patch, was in 1898, 13 tons to the acre, and in 
1899, 14.5 tons. I attribute the increased crops to the improvement 
in the condition of the soil and to a rather better stand, without con¬ 
sidering whether this latter was due to the improved condition of 
soil or not. 
THE EFFECT OF THE MANURE UPON THE STAND AND THE BEETS. 
§ 19. The effect of the manure was very marked, improving 
the stand by at least 10 per cent. I believe that under ordinary 
conditions the effect of so heavy a dressing of manure would not be 
followed by an improvement in the stand, but in our case it was ; 
the weather conditions turning favorable just after the planting. 
The planting took place on May 11, followed by a rainfall of 
over 1.5 inches during the rest of the month, which was well dis¬ 
tributed, rain falling on twelve of the remaining twenty days of the 
month. Had this not been the case, it is a question whether the 
manure might not have facilitated the drying out of the soil suffi¬ 
ciently to more than‘offset its stimulating effect upon the germina¬ 
tion of the seed. As it was, the seed germinated better, the plants 
were more vigorous throughout the season, and the weight of the 
crop was greater; but the shape of the beets was inferior, very 
many of them being rooty, forming a chunky beet with a number 
of roots spreading out from it, literally covered with masses of 
fibrous roots. The ratio of tops to roots was not determined, but it 
was evidently higher than where no manure was used. The six 
plots used for manuring agreed fully in justifying the above state¬ 
ments. There is no reason to suppose that other conditions would 
have modified any of these results, except the one already mentioned 
as possibly exceptional, i. e., that manuring improved the germina¬ 
tion and stand. Our observations on the effect of coarse manure, 
under our conditions, leads to this doubt, which we would not other¬ 
wise entertain. 
EFFECT OF THE MANURE AND ALKALI ON TPIE SUGAR IN THE CROP. 
§ 20. In 1897 we found that the ripening of our crop, or bet¬ 
ter, that the formation of the sugar, was much more rapid between 
October 6 and 13, than at auy other period during the season, 
either before or subsequent to this date. Our results showed that 
about one third of the sugar contained in the crop made its appear¬ 
ance during these seven days. As the crop of 1898 was later than 
that of 1897, both in planting and maturing, we did not attempt to 
follow the development of the sugar throughout the season, but con¬ 
tented ourselves with endeavoring to determine the effects of our 
alkali and manure upon the date and amount of sugar produced 
during the period of this maturing process. Our first samples were 
