CROPS. 483 



culture and manufacture have been immensely extended, and it 

 bids fair to prove one of the greatest boons that was ever bestowed 

 on agriculture. 



There are several kinds of beets cultivated, some of which 

 have been cultivated for a long time. The common red or blood 

 beet, ordinarily grown in gardens for the table, is a well-known 

 vegetable, not, I think, however, so highly appreciated in the 

 United States as in England and on the Continent, where it is 

 much eaten. I have known this cultivated with great success 

 for cattle, adding largely to the product of cows in milk. This 

 species, however, is never used for sugar. 



The next is a very large kind, growing almost entirely out of 

 the ground, of a pink color and white flesh, known commonly as 

 the scarcity beet, or mangel-wurzel, attaining often a large size. 

 and valuable for cattle. There are one or two other kinds, of a 

 yellowish flesh, growing largely out of the ground, and which 

 are considered even more nutritious for stock than the mangel- 



O 



wurzel. 



The beet employed for sugar is called the Silesian beet, with 

 a whitish skin and white flesh ; but the most valuable kinds have 

 a green neck and yellowish tint on the top. This is full as val 

 uable for the feeding of animals as any of the others, and is 

 decidedly the beet selected for its sugar properties. I have before 

 me the chemical analysis of the properties of the beet-root, but I 

 am unable to derive from them a single practical inference. It 

 may be hoped that chemistry will presently tell us what partic 

 ular soil is best fitted to its growth, and what manure it pecu 

 liarly demands ; but this service it has not yet performed. It 

 grows best in a deep, rich, aluminous soil, not a sandy soil, not a 

 calcareous soil, which is unfriendly to it ; and it is particularly 

 desirable that the soil should not be liable to suffer by excessive 

 drought, so that vegetation is arrested. It will bear to be well 

 manured, but it is not an extraordinary exhauster of the soil. It 

 returns indeed a large amount of enriching matter to the soil in 

 its abundant leaves. 



The land should be well prepared, by being deeply dug or 

 ploughed, and thoroughly manured, and the beets may be either 

 sown, or planted in rows, of about twenty-seven inches apart, 

 and the plants in the row about fourteen inches asunder. A great 

 advantage comes from growing the plants in a nursery bed, and 



