Sugar Beets. 
23 
were uniformly high. An attempt was made to obtain the weight 
of the fresh samples, but h was very unsatisfactory. I was informed 
that it was impossible for many of the parties to obtain the weight 
of the samples sent with any degree of accuracy, and this must have 
been the case, for quite a number of the samples received weighed 
more by 250 grams than when they were mailed to us, from three 
to five days previously. Why the senders should give us such 
under weights is not easy to understand. In spite of these accidents, 
we obtained 336 samples which we considered usable, in estimating 
the deduction to be made from the average percentage of sugar 
found in order to approximate the actual percentage in the beets in 
a fresh condition. The amount of drying out was very varying, 
often evidently too low, and sometimes so high that the result ob¬ 
tained had to be rejected as improbable ; but none of the low ones 
were rejected and are included in the 336 samples used. The cor¬ 
rection to be applied as based on these is 1.49 per cent. These 
samples were all wrapped separately in paper and inclosed in a cot¬ 
ton sack or cloth. As the weights given by the senders weie 
unsatisfactory, I repeated the experiments of 1897 with even more 
care, having regard to the temperature at which the room was kept 
during the time of the experiment. The mean temperature for 
September, during that portion of it in which we received samples, 
was 61.3°, and for October it was 46.3°, but the mean maxinum was 
61.0°. I endeavored to keep the room about 60°. I took 4,660 
grams of beets and obtained the following results, the loss being ex¬ 
pressed in percentage of weight at beginning of the twenty-four 
hours. 
TABLE III.—SHOWING THE RATE OF DRYING OUT OF BEETS. 
Weight. 
Temperature 
Percentage 
Days. 
Grams. 
of Room. Degrees. 
of Loss. 
— 
. 4660.0 
• • • • 
1. 
. 4460.0 
57-66 
4.39 
2. 
. 4322.0 
56-62 
3.08 
3. 
.4182.0 
56-57 
3.24 
4. 
. 4066.0 
57-62 
2.77 
p; 
<-'•••• • • 
.3915.0 
57-62 
3.71 
6. 
. 3801.0 
57-62 
2.91 
7. 
. 3695.0 
57-65 
2.79 
8. 
.3617.0 
60-60 
2.11 
9...... 
. 3547.0 
1.93 
10. 
. 3468.0 
2.23 
11. 
. 3391.0 
57-60 
2.17 
12. 
. 3305.0 
60-67 
2.42 
§35. The conclusion arrived at in 1897, was that the maxi¬ 
mum loss was 5.4 per cent, for the first 24 hours, and that after a 
few days it fell to about 2 per cent, and remained quite constant up 
to 17 days. The experiment just recorded was made under similar 
conditions as those in 1897. The beets were covered with gunny 
sacking to protect them from light and to protect them from drafts 
