134 



Bulletin 244. 



a great depth. In some cases drains four or five feet below the surface 

 have been blocked by the. roots of a mangel. 



The flesh is seldom of a uniform color. A transverse section of a 

 mangel shows a series of concentric rings of firm tissue alternating with 

 rings of softer tissue. The sap of the latter is often colored ; thus it may 

 be crimson in the long red mangel or golden in a Golden Tankard mangel, 

 while in a sugar-beet or half-sugar mangel it may be white. There does 

 not appear to be any correlation between the color of the flesh and the 

 sugar content or the feeding value, as has been asserted. Six or seven 

 complete rings are often formed in as many months of growth. The 



different parts of tissue 

 which go to make up a 

 ring vary in their sugar 

 content and feeding 

 value, the cells constitut- 

 ing the ring itself, known 

 as the vascular ring, 

 being richer in sugar 

 than those cells situated 

 midway between two 

 rings. The statement is 

 made that the richest 

 mangels are, therefore, 

 those in which these vas- 

 cular rings are most 

 closely packed together 

 and in which the area 

 devoted to cells poor in 

 sugar is reduced to a 

 minimum, and that, 

 therefore, given two 

 roots of equal diameter, 

 the one having the great- 

 est number of vascular 

 rings will be of the 

 greatest feeding value. 

 Within certain limits the 

 above is probably correct ; how far it may be carried the authors are not 

 yet prepared to say. Some European growers consider this character in 

 the selection of sugar-beets. (Sugar-beet Seed, Lewis S. Ware, 254, 

 1898.) 



It seems to the writers that the search for roots containing a higher 

 proportion of dry matter is commendable, but that the sugar-beets as now 



Fig. 45. — Danish Improved sugar-beet. It does not 

 grow so deep in the ground as the preceding. All 

 sugar-beets are rather poor^keepers for late winter 

 feeding. Six-hich squares. 



