Sugar Beets. 
41 
boiling 80 per cent, alcohol so long as the solution continued to 
react with alpha naphtol. I will observe, in passing, that this 
alcoholic extract yielded, after the alcohol had been distilled off, 
furfurol, upon distillation with hydrochloric acid of 1.06 sp. gr. 
The residue thus freed from sugar was boiled for thirty minutes in 
a flask provided with a reflux condenser, with 1.25 per cent, hydro¬ 
chloric acid solution. The solution was made to volum, and its 
reducing power determined. No furfurol could be detected as 
escaping from the condenser. The results were as follows : 
Kleinwanzlebener.9- 2-97—2.535 per cent, pentoses. 
Kleinwanzlebener.. .9-22-97—3.415 per cent, pentoses. 
Klein wanzlebener.10-13-97—2.624 per cent, pentoses. 
Vilmorin.10-13-97—3.445 per cent, pentoses. 
Yellow Globe.10-29-97—2.673 per cent, pentoses. 
Lane’s Imperial.10-29-97—2.729 per cent, pentoses. 
Zehringen.11-10-99—5.897 per cent, pentoses. 
Vilmorin.11-10-99—5.615 per cent, pentoses. 
Zehringen—after soaking 11-10-99—5.770 per cent, pentoses. 
Vilmorin—after soaking.11-10-99—5.065 per cent, pentoses. 
The total furfurol which the samples were capable of yielding 
was not determined. 
§ 75. The two fodder beets, the Yellow Globe and the Lane’s 
Imperial, were included to see whether they contained more or less 
of these pentose bodies than the sugar beets. In the Zehringen and 
Vilmorin samples of 1899, we observe that the reducing power of 
the extracted pulp is high. The sugar content is also high, but the 
table does not show a decrease in these substances as the beet 
matures; at best, it is not conclusive, because the series is not ex¬ 
tended enough. But three out of four show a lower percentage for 
pentoses, accompanying a lower sugar percentage, and four out of 
five show a higher percentage, accompanying the higher sugar 
percentage. The two soaked samples agree in showing a decrease 
in the pentoses present, which may be due to transformation of 
these bodies into others. It seems probable that not only the 
monosaccharids, such as glucose, may suffer change into poly- 
saccharids, but that the pentoses may also be involved in similar 
changes. 
THE SUGARS IN BEET LEAVES. 
§ 76. I have tried four methods in my efforts to prove the 
presence of sucrose in the leaves and to determine its quantity. 
The first one tried was the investigation of the expressed juice 
of the leaves. This was very unsatisfactory, and led to no conclu¬ 
sion except that there is in the juice of the leaves one or more 
bodies which yield upon hydrolysis with hydrochloric acid bodies 
which reduce Fehling’s solution, but I did not succeed in establish¬ 
ing the presence of sucrose by this method. 
