32 
Bulletin 58. 
over irrigation by turning yellow in places. The average for this 
plot in 1898 was 13.65, and the average for all samples analyzed at 
the Station that season was 13.62 per cent. The average for this 
crop, 1899, which was over-irrigated in early September, was 14.69 
per cent. I have no way of judging whether I diminished the 
yield by treating the crop as I did, but it was the largest yield that 
I have yet gotten off of this ground. The size of the beets in the 
over-irrigated patches of the season of ’98 give contradictory 
indications. It seems probable that the yield would be diminished, 
but it certainly was not materially affected in any of the observed 
cases. 
§ 54. These facts seen to contradict the generally accepted 
view that a rainfall in the latter part of September or early October 
may effect the beets unfavorably. I recorded, in 1897, the effect of 
a rainfall of about .75 of an inch as depressing the sugar content to 
an extent which the beets did not overcome for three weeks. I 
think that the explanation is not difficult. A moderate rainfall 
may do one of two things, according to the condition of the crop at 
the time of its fall. If the crop is growing slowly, but has not 
begun its rest period, the rain may very materially increase its rate 
of growth, and an increase in weight of crop may take place more 
rapidly than the formation of sugar. This would produce a 
depression in the percentage of sugar present, but the percentage 
might be subsequently regained or exceeded. If the crop had 
already begun its resting period, had begun to ripen, the rain 
might, as it often does, produce a new growth, that is, a second 
growth, in which new leaves are produced, a fact familiar to every 
one. In this case there is a real diminution of the sugar present, 
and not only an apparent one due to a disproportionately large 
increase in the weight of the crop. In the over irrigation we have 
neither of these cases. On the contrary, the effort was to keep the 
beets growing steadily, but to puddle the soil tightly about them at 
a period not too much in advance of their normal time of maturing 
and then to leave them. I do not believe that the same results would 
follow in all soils, nor if the excessive irrigation should be applied 
at a time when it would cause the crop to take on a new growth, 
but there does seem to be enough promise in it to justify a 
sufficiently extensive series of experiments to determine the exact 
conditions of soil and time when it will produce advantageous 
results, as there is no doubt but that such conditions exist. 
BEET ASH AND ITS COMPOSITION. 
§ 55. In 1897 I endeavored to determine the ash at different 
periods in the development of the beet, and the effect of the different 
soil conditions upon the composition of the ash. There was a series 
of analyses of beet ashes, seventeen in number, made during the 
