SUGAR-BEETS AND MANGOLDS. 57 



latter is preferable for winter use, because it keeps better, and 

 produces more in quantity ; but, for stock-feeding, either 

 mangolds or sugar-beets are now- preferred to all others. 

 Personally I consider the sugar-beet superior to the mangold ; 

 for, while we get less in quantity, it is much better in quality. 

 It is sweeter, and contains more nutrition. " Lane's Ameri- 

 can improved imperial " is largely raised in the Connecticut 

 Valley, and is generally regarded as the best. The average 

 weight is about six pounds ; though it sometimes attains an 

 enormous size. The originator of this variety has grown 

 specimens that weighed twenty pounds each, showing that it 

 is more of a mangold than a sugar-beet. 



Beet-seed for stock-feeding should be sown about the 

 middle of May. Plough in half of the manure ; put the 

 rest in furrows two feet and a half apart, and cover it with 

 a tobacco-ridger. Then sow the seed at the rate of four 

 pounds an acre. Thin the plants when the root is as large 

 as your finger, leaving them eight or ten inches apart in the 

 rows. Keep the weeds down, and run the cultivator often 

 between the rows. If you should get short for green fodder 

 for your cows in October, pull off the tops of the beets, and 

 feed them. The beets will do just as well, and sometimes 

 seem to keep better hi winter, if this is done ; for the crown 

 of the beet will get somewhat healed over before it is put 

 into the cellar, and it does not rot so soon. Cows that are 

 in milk during the winter, eating one peck of roots a day, 

 will eat no less hay, but will look better, although it is a 

 small quantity to feed. When I have plenty of roots, I feed 

 from half a bushel to a bushel a day, and always with good 

 results. 



There is a great variety of vegetables from which the 

 farmer should select a few, at least, for his own family use. 

 It is economical, it is healthy, it is always convenient, to 

 have a good supply of vegetables on hand. I cannot speak 

 of them all, were I disposed to so do ; but I cannot close 

 without saying a few words in regard to 



POTATOES. 



Formerly we thought any piece of ground, at the end of 

 the corivrows, or on some poor spot of land where nothing 

 else would succeed, was good ^nough for potatoes. But the 



