THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



MANGOLD WURZEL, 



BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S. 



It is hardly possible to over-rate the importance 

 of some of the recent endeavours to improve the 

 growth of our root crops. I liave seen this when 

 amongst my Surrey neighbours ; and I feel it now 

 while I am writing this paper amid some of the 

 farms of East Suflfolk, whose holders need fear 

 little, when their skilful management is compared 

 with that of other (oftener talked-of) districts. 

 There is here, as in other places, an increasing 

 growth of mangold v/urzel. It is used for stock 

 earlier in the autumn than heretofore : it is found 

 that by improved management more land can be 

 got ready for this crop than was once deemed pos- 

 sible; and, these chief difficulties overcome, the 

 superior- merits of the mangold, not only for its 

 storing and feeding properties, but for its freedom 

 from the attacks of insects, are certain of obtaining 

 for it the preference over some of the other widely- 

 cultivated roots. The progress of discovery, too, 

 seems to add considerably to our knowledge of the 

 value of this root for manufacturing purposes. 

 With us, however, its use as food for stock must 

 ever be our primary consideration. This con- 

 viction, however, in no way militates against any 

 plans for first employing the beet for such profit- 

 able purposes as shall leave its refuse matters 

 but little if at all deteriorated in their nutri- 

 tive properties. In this way many manufactures 

 have been extensively and profitably established, 

 not only on the continent, but to some extent in 

 England — that of beet-root sugar, and that of beet- 

 root spirits. It is true that the manufacture of 

 sugar from best has needed, on the continent, the 

 protection of the Government-duty on cane sugar; 

 and in England, when attempted some years since, 

 it failed in its competition with the low prices of 

 Muscovado sugar which then ruled; but still it 

 was felt that with a higher market adifl^erent result 

 might be obtained. The value of the refuse beet 

 for stock, after the sugar had been extracted, was, 

 however, well established ; and this fact is of some 

 importance, as supporting the reported results ob- 

 tained by the beet-spirit distillers, to which I shall 

 presently refer. On the continent the refuse pulp 

 of the sugar manufactories is mixed with other 

 substances when given to stock (and there is much 

 yet to be learnt as to the most profitable mixture of 

 food). We give an instance from the practice of 

 an extensive French farm. In the farm of Bresle, 

 in France (Oise), connected with a sugar-from-beet 



manufactory, in 1854, 7,000 sheep were fattened 

 {Quar. Jour. Ay., 1856, p. 334); in one sheep-fold 

 500 half-breds consumed daily 880 lbs. of the pulp 

 of the beet-root, 440 of rape cake, 440 of poppy 

 cake, 385 of chopped green forage, 385 of 

 chopped straw, with 5 lbs. of salt, all mixed to- 

 gether. The sheep consumed at most about 1 lb. 

 of rape cake, but they ate greedily 2 lbs. of poppy 

 cake : a mixture of the two seems to answer well. 

 When fed, they pick out— 1st, the beet-root pulp ; 

 2nd, the cake ; 3rd, the cut forage and straw. The 

 sheep cost from 18 to 23 francs, the ewes from 13 

 to 20 francs : their fleeces vary from 6i to 12 lbs. 

 The refuse pulp of the beet thus prepared will 

 consist of the beet deprived of a large portion of 

 its saccharine and other soluble matters, by being 

 mixed with water. The object of the distiller is to 

 convert the sugar of the beet into spirits, which is 

 readily enough accomplished by fermentation. But 

 as the sugar-maker reduces his beet to a pulp, 

 whilst the distiller of spirits employs it in thin 

 shces, the probability is that more of the other 

 nutritious, yet soluble matters of the root, will be 

 found in the distiller's refuse than in that of the 

 sugar-maker. 



An account of the distillation of beet-root, by 

 Mr. R. S. Burn, will be found in the just-published 

 number of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 

 (p. 49) ; and he there dwells, in a valuable paper, at 

 some length upon the real feeding value of the 

 refuse beet of the distiller. It seems that the slices 

 of beet-root after distillation, or cossets, as they are 

 termed on the continent, contain a large per-centage 

 of the nutriment contained in the root in its 

 normal condition, and have moreover the invaluable 

 property of keeping for one or two years in a state 

 of perfect preservation, either banked up like pota- 

 toes, or kept in reservoirs or pits. "The fermenta- 

 tion," says M. Leplay, " of the slices of saccharine 

 roots, in a juice saturated with its own elements, 

 has the eflfect of leaving to the root its azotic 

 nutritive and other valuable principles, and 

 changing into alcohol the saccharine matter only. 

 The nutritive azotic matters, being essentially fixed 

 by the process of fermentation and heat, are found 

 sohdified and coagulated in the slices during the 

 fermentation and distillation, and are thus in- 

 soluble in water. When the distillation of the fer- 

 mented slices has been conducted so that they 

 retain their shape after the operation, they drain off 



