ROOT CROPS. 167 



labor of purifying it. The one at first selected was the long, 

 white mangold-wurzel, and this was called the sugar-beet in 

 commercial parlance. This white mangold Avas not entirely 

 white, the portion of it that grew above-ground being usually 

 colored a light green by exposure to the sun's rays. It 

 became, therefore, an object for the manufacturer to still im- 

 prove on this mangold, to the end that all the coloring matter 

 in the root should be eliminated. The intelligence and enter- 

 prise of the seedsmen of Europe responded to this want, and 

 in the course of a few years two prominent varieties of man- 

 gold were produced that have nearly completely satisfied it — 

 one of these were sent out by the estimable house of Vilmorin, 

 * Andrews & Co., of Paris, and is named "Vilmorin's new 

 Improved White" ; and the other, "White Imperial Extra," by 

 the distinguished German house of Ernest Benary. 



These improved sugar-beets of commerce grow nearly 

 entirely under-ground. They are called beets, but are so only 

 in a generic sense, just as the green-fleshed melons are 

 included in the word muskmelou when that word is used in a 

 generic sense, though at the same time we know that by the 

 muskmelou in the familiar language of the family we mean 

 only the mealy, yellow-fleshed variety. When grown, these 

 beets define themselves to be the mangold variety by the 

 coarser structure of the root, the stouter ribs of the leaves 

 and the greater coarseness of the leaves, which spring in 

 larger masses directly from the crown than is the case with 

 the beets for the table. 



The moral of all this for you, my farmer friend, is, that if 

 you want a beet for table-use, do not order seed of the sugar- 

 beet, or you will be very likely to find a mangold growing in 

 your o-arden, a return, but not a recompense, for the sweat and 



toil of the husbandman. 



J. J. H. Gregory, Ohairman. 



