166 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



irregularly, but finally in sufficient numbers to insure a fair 

 crop; cultivated three times, and hoed twice with hand-hoes ; 

 harvested from November 1st to 5th. Product : 8,520 pounds, 

 or 142 bushels of turnips, being at the rate of 568 bushels 

 per acre, and five tons of tops, by estimation. 



Expense of Crop. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Sugar-Beet. — What is a sugar-beet? By the agricultural 

 public, and even by the agricultural papers which profess to 

 be teachers of the public, the term sugar-beet is almost 

 always misapplied. One of our agricultural papers recently, 

 in a long editorial, written with the avowed object of making 

 clear to the uninstructed mind the difference between a beet 

 and a mangold-wurzel, asserted that the sugar-beet grew to 

 the lens^th of about fifteen inches ! The term sugar-beet is 

 an unfortunate one, as the word sugar had already been 

 appropriated to express the sweet flavor of the varieties of 

 beets raised for table-use, while the word beet is strictly a 

 misnomer, the vegetable sugar-beet being in reality a mangold- 

 wurzel. A generation ago our fathers used the term sugar 

 as a familiar designation for any sweet variety of beet raised 

 for table-use, and at the present time by the great majority 

 of the public the term is still so used. As the new industry 

 of mauufiicturinoj susjar from the beet o;rew on the continent 

 of Europe, seedsmen were called upon to supply for com- 

 merce seed of the best variety for this purpose. It was 

 necessary that this variety should be as free as possible from 

 all colorin<r substance, as all this would as a matter of course 

 give a stain to the juice, and impose on the manufacturer the 



