112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



twenty pounds sterling (at £480 sterling,) 0576 (five hundred 

 and seventy-six dollars) return for the product of eight acres 

 in roots, after withdrawing forty-one tons — which were fed to 

 other stock. The labor compensated by the manure made for 

 the farm. 



Root Crop of England. — By the returns made to the British 

 Parliament, of the annual agricultural products of the kingdom, 

 the turnip crop, for all its uses for men, Cattle, etc., was set 

 down at one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. 



The farmers of Massachusetts who have cultivated the past 

 season large crops of roots, (when the surface crops were 

 generally short, and the root crops yielded abundantly,) have 

 been able to easily winter the stock of their farms. 



The analysis of roots, such as the beet, carrot, parsnip and 

 turnip, showing eighty-five to ninety per cent, of water, does 

 not prove the crop to be of as little value as has been inferred 

 from this fact alone. The remaining ten to fifteen per cent, is 

 nutritive matter. Twenty tons of turnips is not an uncommon 

 crop on one acre of good land. If these contain but ten pounds 

 of solid matter in every one hundred pounds, the aggregate 

 amount from twenty tons would be four thousand pounds. 



Thirty bushels of wheat to the acre (sixty pounds per bushel,) 

 would give but eighteen hundred pounds. The dry matter of 

 the turnip is nearly as fattening as wheaten flour. The com- 

 parison shows a double return per acre. When the average 

 yield of corn is but thirty bushels to the acre (fifty-six pounds 

 to the bushel,) sixteen hundred and eighty pounds, the turnip 

 crop, ordinarily yielding five hundred bushels to the acre, is 

 more profitable to the farmer. While the carrot and the beet 

 have eighty-five per cent, of water, the bread made by bakers 

 in our cities from .Southern flour, contains about fifty per cent, 

 of water. 



Dr. Voelcker says : there is a general resemblance in the 

 composition of parsnips and carrots. Parsnips differ in compo- 

 sition from carrots, by containing less sugar, which is replaced 

 by starch. Parsnips contain, on an average, eighteen parts of 

 solid substances, carrots twelve parts. The woody fibre in 

 parsnips, carrots, turnips, mangolds and Swedes, is, without 



