UMBELLIFEILE. CXXXI. DAUCUS. 



357 



mucli injury. Such as I want to keep for the use of my horses 

 until the months of May and June, in drawing over the heaps 

 (which is necessary to be done the latter end of April, when the 

 carrots begin to sprout at the crown very fast,) I throw aside 

 healthy and most perfect roots, and have their crown cut com- 

 pletely oft', and laid by themselves ; by this means carrots may 

 be kept the month of June out in a high state of perfection." 

 Burrows' Communications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. vii. 

 p. 72. 



The storing of the whole crop of carrots, may be a desirable 

 practice when winter wheat is to follow them, in which case the 

 same mode may be adopted as for turnips or potatoes, but with 

 fewer precautions against the frost, as the carrot if perfectly dry 

 is very little injured by that description of weather. 



The produce of an acre of carrots in Suffolk, according to 

 Arthur Young, is at an average 350 bushels ; but Burrows' crop 

 averaged upwards of 800 bushels per acre, which considerably 

 exceeds the largest crop of potatoes. 



The uses to which the carrot is applied in Suffolk are various. 

 Large quantities are sent to the London markets, and also used 

 as food to different kinds of live stock. Horses are remarkably 

 fond of carrots, and it is even said when oats and carrots are 

 given together, the horses leave the oats and eat the carrots. 

 The ordinary allowance is about 40 or 50 pounds a day to each 

 horse. Carrots, when mixed with chaff, that is, cut straw, and 

 a little hay, keep horses in excellent condition for performing all 

 kinds of ordinary labour. The farmers begin to feed tlieir 

 horses with carrots in December, and continue to give them 

 chiefly that kind of provender till the beginning or middle of 

 May ; to which period, with proper care, carrots may be pre- 

 served. As many of the farmers in that country are of opinion, 

 that carrots are not so good for horses in winter as in spring, 

 they give only half the above allowance of carrots at first, and 

 add a little corn for a few weeks after they begin to use carrots. 



The application of the carrot to the feeding of working cattle 

 and hogs, is thus detailed by Burrows : " I begin to take up the 

 carrot crop in the last week of October, as at that time I gene- 

 rally finish soiling my horses with lucern, and now solely depend 

 upon my carrots, with a proper allowance of hay, as winter 

 food for my horses, until about the first week of June following, 

 when the lucern is again ready for soiling. By reducing this 

 practice to a system, I have been enabled to feed 10 cart horses 

 throughout the winter months for these last 6 years, without 

 giving them any corn whatever, and have at the same time 

 effected a considerable saving in hay. I give them to my cart- 

 horses in the proportion of 70 pounds weight of carrots a horse 

 per day, upon an average, not allowing them quite so many in 

 the very short days, and sometimes more than that quantity in 

 the spring months, or to the amount I withheld in the short win- 

 ter days. The men who tend the horses slice some of the 

 carrots in the cut chaff of hay, and barn door refuse ; the rest 

 of the carrots they give whole to the horses at night, with a small 

 quantity of hay in their racks, and with this food my horses 

 generally enjoy uninterrupted health. 1 mention this, as I be- 

 lieve that some persons think that carrots only, given as food to 

 horses, are injurious to their constitutions ; but most of the pre- 

 judices of mankind have no better foundation, and are taken up 

 at random, or inherited from their forefathers. So successful 

 have I been with carrots, as a winter food for horses, that with 

 the assistance of lucern for soiling in summer, I have been 

 enabled to prove by experiments, conducted under my own per- 

 sonal inspection, that an able Norfolk team-horse, fully worked 

 two journeys a day, winter and summer, may be kept the entire 

 year round upon the produce of one statute acre of land. I 

 have likewise applied carrots with great profit to the feeding of 

 hogs in winter, and by that means have made my straw into a 



most excellent manure, without the aid of neat cattle. The hogs 

 so fed are sold on Norfolk-hill to the London dealers as 

 porkers." The profits of carrots so applied, he shows in a sub- 

 sequent statement, together with an experiment of feeding four 

 Galloway bullocks with carrots, against four others fed in the 

 common way with turnips and hay. Burrows' Communica- 

 tions, &c. 



In comparing the carrot with the potatoe, an additional circum- 

 stance greatly in favour of the former is, that it does not require 

 to be steamed or boiled, and it is not more difficult to wash than 

 the potatoe. These, and other circumstances considered, it ap- 

 pears to be the most valuable of all roots for working horses. 



The use of the carrot in domestic economy is well known. Their 

 produce of nutritive matter, as ascertained by Sir H. Davy, is 

 98 parts in 1000, of which 3 are starch, and 95 sugar. They are 

 used in the dairy in winter and spring to give colour and flavour 

 to butter. In the distillery, owing to the great proportion of 

 sugar in their composition, they yield more spirit than the 

 potatoe; the usual quantity is 12 gallons per ton. They are 

 excellent in soups, stews, and haricots, and boiled whole with 

 salt beef. 



Medical qualities. The seeds, especially of the wild variety, 

 have a moderately warm pungent taste, and an agreeable smell. 

 They are carminative, and are said to be diuretic. The roots, 

 especially of the cultivated variety, contain much mucilaginous 

 and saccharine matter, and are therefore highly nutritious and 

 emollient. When beaten to a pulp, they form an excellent ap- 

 plication to carcinomatous and ill-conditioned ulcers, allaying the 

 pain, checking the suppuration and fetid smell, and softening the 

 callous edges. 



Common Carrot. Fl. Ju. Jul. Britain. PI. 2 to 3 feet. 



11 D. MARI'TIMUS (Lam. diet. 1. p. 634. but not of With.) 

 stem elongated, smooth, and glabrous at the base, but scabrous 

 from tubercles above ; leaves glabrous : lower ones bipinnate ; 

 leaflets jagged : segments linear, acuminated ; leaves of involucra 

 pinnatifid, linear, acute ; of the involucels undivided ; prickles 

 about equal in length to the diameter of the fruit, which is 

 ovate. $ . H. Native of France, in sand, along the sea-shore ; 

 as well as along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, where it 

 is generally mixed with D. Carbta, but from which it is easily 

 distinguished. D. C. fl. fr. 4. p. 329. bot. gall. 1. p. 215. 



Sea-side Carrot. Fl. June, Jul. Clt. ? PI. 1 to 2 feet. 



12 D. GLABE'RRIMUS (Desf. fl. atl. 1. p. 244. t. 64.) stem 

 glabrous, or rather scabrous from small down ; leaves pinnate ; 

 leaflets cuneated, bluntly 3-5-lobed, glabrous ; leaves of invo- 

 lucra pinnatifid, acute, one half shorter than the umbels; invo- 

 lucels trifid or simple ; prickles about equal in length to the 

 breadth of the fruit, which is ovate. O- H. Native of the 

 north of Africa, near Tozzer, in woods of palm trees. Flowers 

 small, white. 



Quite-glabrous Carrot. PL 1 to 2 feet. 



1 3 D. GINGI'DIUM (Lin. spec. 348.) stem and petioles sca- 

 brous from scattered bristles ; leaves bipinnate ; leaflets deeply 

 toothed, ovate : segments obtuse, mucronate ; leaves of invo- 

 lucra striated, pinnatifid, about equal in length to the umbels ; 

 prickles bristle -formed, equal in length to the breadth of the 

 fruit, capitately glochidate at the apex. $ . H. Native of Cor- 

 sica, on rocks by the sea-side, and probably of Sicily. D. 

 Mauritanicus, Salzm. exsie. Gingidium, Math. ed. Valgr. 373. 

 f. 1. D. lucidus, Lin. 51. suppl. 179. ex Smith, in Lin. trans. 

 9. p. 133. Bocc. mus. t. 20. Habit of D. Hispdnicus, but 

 differs in the fruit. FtyyiSiov, is a name employed by Diosco- 

 rides for an umbelliferous plant, but what plant is now un- 

 known. 



Chervil-like or Shining-leaved Carrot. Fl. June, July. Clt. 

 1722. PI. 2 to 3 feet. 



