328 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to such products ; their cultivation has commenced on a limited 

 scale, and it could be enlarged to our health and profit. 



The returns of 1870 do not give us credit for the cultivation 

 of any root crops, and they do no special wrong, for our State 

 returns of 1865 tell us that in that year of beets, turnips and 

 carrots we had but sixty-eight acres, and pretty careful observa- 

 tion indicates that they have not materially increased since. 



The system of carrying stock through the winter on a diet ex- 

 clusively of dry hay and grain is, to say the least, one of very 

 doubtful expediency and profit, and the introduction of roots, 

 mangolds, Swedes, or carrots, as a crop for stock feed, would 

 increase our crop variety, change our rotation, enable us to 

 keep larger herds and in better condition, improve the physical 

 condition of our soil, and increase the material for its fertili- 

 zation. 



In making suggestions for the improvement of the agriculture 

 of Eastern Hampshire, we should keep continually in mind that 

 tobacco is, and perhaps is to be, the leading crop next to hay, 

 and on account of the ease, certainty and despatch with which 

 it is converted into money, it is better even than that. The 

 change, therefore, must be one which, if it lessen the cultivation 

 of tobacco, will make a corresponding return of cash, either in 

 ready cash, or the improvement of the lands. Now, tobacco 

 feeds enormously from the soil, but it makes no stock feed ; it 

 leaves nothing on the farm to compensate for the draft it makes. 

 The fertilizing elements must be returned from other sources. 

 In view of these facts, a desirable improvement would be the 

 introduction of some really profitable crop, which would thrive 

 on the soil elements which the tobacco does not consume, which 

 would materially aid in sustaining the stock of the farm, and 

 making manure to support its fertility. 



Most careful, searching inquiry and examination at home and 

 abroad, and through experiments tried on our own territory, at 

 the Agricultural College, seem to indicate beyond a reasonable 

 doubt, that the introduction of the sugar beet as a crop, and its 

 use as stock feed, or as a fertilizer, after its saccharine matter 

 has been manufactured into sugar, would accomplish this de- 

 sirable object. This culture seems to be required by the fact 

 that there is an enormous and rapidly increasing demand for 



