SECRETARY'S REPORT, 33 



Colman quotes from Curwen, a distinguished English farmer, as follows : 

 " The profits and advantage of carrots are, in my opinion, greater than any 

 other crop. This admirable root has, upon repeated and very extensive trials 

 for the last three years been found to answer most perfectly as a part substi- 

 tute for oats. Where ten pounds of oats are given per day, four pounds may 

 be taken away, and their place supplied by five pounds of carrots. This has 

 been practiced in the feeding of eighty horses with the most complete success, 

 and the health and condition of the horses allowed to be improved by the ex- 

 change. An acre of carrots supplies a quantity of food for working horses 

 equal to sixteen or twenty acres of oats.'" Mr. Colman adds : " My own ex- 

 perience of the value of carrots, which has not been small, confirms these 

 statements." 



Mr. J. W. Lincoln of Worcester, Mass., who has conducted and reported 

 many valuable experiments, proves that a peck of carrots a day to a cow, in- 

 creased her milk upon no day less than one quart, generally more, and of 

 improved quality, while the consumption of hay was lessened ; so the carrots 

 not only made milk, but satisfied the hunger of the cow. 



There is hardly anything in the whole round of topics that fill our agricul- 

 tural records for a series of years, more fully proved and established, than the 

 great value of carrots as feed for horses and cows. Our own experience for 

 many years proves them equally valuable and convenient as feed for sheep, 

 swine and poultry. Many years ago, we put up a few old sheep in winter, 

 and fed them steamed carrots a few weeks. When slaughtered, we were sur- 

 prised at their fine condition. The yield of tallow was very large. The sheep 

 were not weighed when the feeding commenced, and we derive no facts from 

 the case ; but we drop it for the benefit of some curious feeder. 



It is the practice of many, when they once get a piece of land in good tilth 

 for carrots, to plant the same for a series of years. They succeed well in this 

 way. Many of us are sorely tempted to this practice, who occupy stony lands, 

 requiring much labor to clear them for the passage of the drill-barrow and the 

 wheel-hoe. We speak from a feeling experience, and having spent a week in 

 raking and removing the small stones from a half acre, after it was otherwise 

 ready for the seed. Such extras are rightly charged in account to those who 

 are to come after us — permanent improvements. 



In regard to the preparation of land for root crops, and the manual for 

 culture, we have little to add to that already written and often repeated. A 

 drill-barrow for sowing small seeds, may be owned by a neighborhood. Every 

 gardener has, or ought to have, a good wheel-hoe, with changeable cutters. 

 Every farmer and gardener has, or ought to have at command, a good steel 

 subsoil plow, that may be worked with either one or two horses. x\ small 

 piece of carrots, a quarter or half acre, is best planted about sixteen inches 

 between rows, and tended with hand implements. For larger lots, the rows 

 should be more distant, and horse implements used in the culture. Some 

 varieties of the yellow or red carrot are subject, in some seasons, to rust in 

 mid-summer. The white ones have usually escaped that malady. White 

 carrots attain to much greater length and weight than the yellow. 



Considerable discussion followed the reading of the several re- 

 ports on root culture ; from which it appeared that greatly varying 

 success attended the culture of the turnip, carrot and mangold in 

 varying soils and locations — and that each deserved a fair trial. 

 It appeared that in a majority of cases, especially on strong loams, 

 that the mangold was rapidly gaining favor as more easily, cheaply 

 and abundantly grown — that, unless by the sea-shore, an applica- 

 tion of salt was highly useful, and best applied some weeks before 

 sowing the seed. Of the expediency of increasing their culture as 

 3 



