CROPS. 261 



tinguished farmer, in whose authority I place the utmost confi 

 dence, pronounces it as thirty per cent, more productive than the 

 common carrots ; and I met with an eminent farmer who had 

 grown thirty-one tons seventeen hundred weight upon an acre, 

 arid whose crops averaged twenty-four tons per acre. Another 

 farmer informed me, that he usually obtained twenty-five tons 

 per acre. A farmer, at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, who is lay 

 ing the foundation of one of the most splendid agricultural es 

 tablishments in England, and whom I had the pleasure of visit 

 ing, obtained a crop of a hundred tons from three acres. Much 

 of this was due to the liberal application of guano. Another 

 farmer reports having grown upon four acres four thousand eight 

 hundred bushels of the white carrot, or twelve hundred bushels 

 per acre, which he fed to his horses, ten pounds each per day, 

 and to his neat cattle, with very great advantage. A strong 

 prejudice exists against the use of white carrots for horses, as 

 injuring their eyes ; and the farmer first mentioned above thinks 

 it not without foundation, believing that his own horses had suf 

 fered from that cause. 



With respect to the common red beet, or the sugar beet, and 

 the parsnip, I have not seen them under field cultivation in 

 England, though the parsnip is said to be largely cultivated, as 

 feed for stock, in the channel islands. The sugar beet is re 

 ported to yield abundantly, and to furnish a more nutritious 

 food, better for fattening, and for milch cows, than the mangel- 

 wurzel ; yet the former has not supplanted the latter. The 

 Jerusalem artichoke is often served at table, and is approved by 

 many as food for stock, but is not so palatable or so nutritious 

 as the potato. It grows, however, without much care, and in 

 almost any ground, besides continuing itself in the ground from 

 year to year. Under favorable circumstances, it is said to yield 

 five hundred bushels to an acre, a statement which I do not 

 give from personal observation, nor receive without some dis 

 trust. 



10. CABBAGES. Cabbages have been cultivated to a consid 

 erable extent in England. There are many varieties; but my 

 province lies only with those which are cultivated for the feed 

 of stock : and this embraces two principal kinds, those with 

 spreading leaves, from which the leaves are plucked, and tt\en 



