OUR ROOT-CROPS. 53 



Taking the average of these, it gives me four hundred and 

 two pounds and a half to the rod, or sixty-four thousand 

 four hundred pounds per acre, equal to thirty-two tons and 

 a tenth. 



The beets were analyzed at the Agricultural College 

 laboratory, and gave from 10.30 per cent to 11.18 per cent 



sugar. 



[From an Essay on Koot-Crops by J. L. Delano.] 



Fifty years ago the people of this section did not pay 

 much attention to root-crops any farther than to supply a 

 few edible varieties for the use of the family. The live-stock 

 in the barn scarcely ever got any thing of the kind from 

 Thanksgiving till May ; and the young stock and dry cows, 

 being kept almost exclusively on swamp-hay and cornstalks, 

 suffered aeordingby, and came out in the spring poor, 

 scrawny, and hide-bound, with their bowels in the condition 

 to justify the Vermont farmer when he says, "as tight as a 

 yearling steer in the month of March." It is true, here and 

 thece would be found a farmer who would raise some Ensr- 

 lish turnips ; but most farmers had the idea that they poi- 

 soned the land, and in some way rendered it unfit for any 

 other crop for a year or two afterwards. 



But, during the last ten or twenty years, a general revolu- 

 tion has taken place in regard to root-crops, not only in our 

 vicinity, but all over the State ; and those of our farmers who 

 have learned to grow them with economy of land and labor 

 have long since abandoned all doubts with regard to their 

 profit, and fully appreciate the benefits they confer on the 

 animals which consume them ; and they are now so generally 

 grown in some parts of New England, that it 13 evident that 

 they are beginning to be appreciated somewhat according to 

 their value. If the keeping and feeding of live-stock upon 

 our farms is the basis upon which successful agriculture 

 must rest, and the health of animals, and the capacity to 

 digest other kinds of food, is largely promoted by the liberal 

 use of roots, aside from the actual nourishment they contain, 

 and the amount of other and mire expensive food that may 

 be saved, then the importanc 1 of root-culture is firmly 

 established. 



In this connection it is well to remember that three tons 



