Sugar Beets. 
31 
single row, that two great a width between the rows tends to have 
the same effect as permitting the beets to grow singly. 
EFFECTS OF OVER IRRIGATION. 
§ 52. The difference in the size of the beets, it being smaller, 
and their sugar content, it being higher, in the west end of one of 
our patches than in the east end, seemed difficult to explain, as the 
patch was only 400 feet long, and the soil seems equally good 
throughout. Our field notes, however, call attention to the fact that 
the west end is hard and the foliage is yellow, as though water had 
stood there, puddled the ground and produced the yellowness of the 
leaves. As this was the only perceptible difference in the condi¬ 
tions at the east and west ends, there remained nothing else to 
which to attribute the difference in the quality of the beets. There 
was another patch on the Farm in which this had happened, and 
we collected samples from this patch also and analyzed them, 
together with samples taken from the same patch, but which had 
not suffered from this cause. It appears from the table on page 27 
that the average of all the samples taken from the west end 
exceeds by 0.71 percent, that of all the samples from the east end. 
An examination of the table in detail shows how constantly the 
samples from the west end were better than those from the east end, 
though the average difference is only 0.71 per cent. The samples 
obtained from the other patch, consisting of eight beets each, the 
one yellow from the effects of too much water, the other taken a few 
feet away but green and healthy looking. The beets of both 
samples were small. In the green sample they averaged 0.62 
pound. This sample showed 13.78 per cent, sugar and 79.1 purity. 
In the over irrigated sample the average weight was 0.66 pound. 
This sample showed the presence of 17.20 per cent, sugar and 89.1 
coefficient of purity. It was at this time so late in the season that 
we could not follow this subject, and postponed further observations 
until the next season, 1899. I was, in a certain sense, thwarted in 
this part of my work ; but in another sense I was not. In making 
an experiment with irrigating water I had an opportunity to over 
irrigate my beet plot and subject it to a treatment reproducing the 
conditions of these over-irrigated patches. 
§ 53. My plot did not need water, but wishing to make 
observations on the changes in the amount of solids, etc., which go 
into solution and pass into the ground water, I obtained, through 
the kindness of Capt. Hawley, our Water Commissioner, enough 
water to thoroughly soak the ground, raising the water plane quite 
to the surface. This irrigation was made August 31 to September 
2 inclusive. The ground was not disturbed, but allowed to settle 
and become hard. The beets were left to themselves until dug. 
The ground did become hard, and the beets showed the effect of 
