484 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



transplanting them. This gives a longer season for the prepa 

 ration of the land, and the increase of labor in transplanting is 

 compensated by the increased facility of keeping the cultivation 

 clean. The largest crop of which I have obtained any informa 

 tion, was about forty-nine tons to an acre, and this was a case in 

 which they had been transplanted. The ordinary crop does not 

 exceed, and in many cases it falls short of, twenty-nine tons. 

 The amount of seed required for an acre is not large, and every 

 single seed produces four plants. A large proportion of the beet 

 root is water, and it is generally estimated that twenty pounds 

 of hay are equal to one hundred pounds of crude beet. In trans 

 planting, it is recommended, instead of doubling it up, to break 

 off the lower end of the tap-root, and to plant it with a picker or 

 a dibble. 



In the culture of the beet, many persons have been in the 

 habit of plucking the lower leaves for their stock, maintaining 

 that the growth of the plant was not injured by this abrasion. 

 Experiments fully establish the contrary. An experiment made 

 in Belgium shows, that where beets, from which the leaves were 

 not plucked, produced nine hundred and twenty-five baskets of 

 roots, an equal part of the field, having been plucked once, pro 

 duced eight hundred and thirty-nine ; and another portion, which 

 had been twice plucked in a season, produced only five hundred 

 and thirty-nine. The form in which this experiment is stated is 

 not exact, as a basket itself is an uncertain measure, and the 

 degree to which the plucking extended is not stated, but it seems 

 decisive. The leaves, at the harvesting of the crop, furnish a. 

 large amount of forage. If left on the ground, they are reputed 

 highly beneficial as manure, still more so if consumed by ani 

 mals : and cases are reported in which they have been closely 

 packed away, where the air was effectually excluded, and have 

 yielded a valuable forage for the winter. 



That, exclusive of their sugar properties, they constitute a 

 valuable green fodder for cows in milk, and fatting cattle, strongly 

 recommends them to cultivation. They have this great advan 

 tage over turnips, that they give no disagreeable taste to the 

 milk : and that when, in the spring, turnips have become corky, 

 and potatoes sprout abundantly, and seem to lose in a great 

 degree their nutritious properties, the beet preserves its freshness, 

 even into June. 



