SECRETARY'S REPORT. 43 



state, where grass is our principal and cheapest forage crop, it seems 

 to us, that we should rather endeavor to produce and preserve for 

 •winter use a sufficiency of roots to furnish a desirable change and 

 variety of food for our animals during the winter months, and to 

 enable us to use advantageously much rough fodder in place of good 

 hay, which could thus be greatly economised. 



Inasmuch as the turnip crop in England is relied upon as the 

 principal food for sheep during the winter, taking the place, almost 

 entirely, of the various kinds of fodder and grain which in this 

 state we are obliged to supply to our stock, our answer might very 

 properly begin and end with the simple but emphatic word, none ! 

 But presuming that the Board did not expect or desire quite so short 

 a reply, we will venture to express very briefly, our opinion, based 

 upon our own experience and observation, that the turnip, however 

 extensively cultivated in this state, would not "yield similar advan- 

 tages " to the agricultural interests that it has in England. Neither 

 would the cultivation of any one of the different varieties of vegeta- 

 bles, however extensively it might be adopted by the farmers of 

 Maine. No root crop can in our climate be made to constitute, 

 advantageously, so large a proportion of the winter food of sheep and 

 neat stock, as does the turnip in England. 



We can, perhaps, produce nearly as heavy crops and of quite as 

 good quality as are produced there, it is, however, almost impossible 

 to secure from frost the requisite quantity to support a large stock 

 of sheep and cattle through our six months of winter, but notwith- 

 standing the presumed impossibility of gaining the whole point, may 

 we not by adopting more extensively the cultivation of turnips, beets 

 and carrots, approximate very nearly to it ? 



The turnip, in our climate, may generally be raised in large 

 quantities, at less cost than any other root crop, but it is more liable 

 to injury from insects, and is of less value as food for stock than 

 either the mangold-wurzel or carrot. 



The mangold-wurzel we esteem the most valuable of the roots 

 referred to, on account of its certainty, with proper cultivation, to 

 yield a large crop, and of its nutritive properties, equal to either 

 the others. It keeps well, and is not, so far as our observation 

 extends, liable to the attacks of insects or vermin in its early 

 growth. 



