420 HORTICULTURAL MEMOIRS, 



LXV1I. 



Extract of a Letter from Dr JOHN COAKLEY 

 LETTSOM, Physician, London, to Dr DUNCAN 

 senior, Edinburgh, respecting the Beta Cicla, 

 Mangold-Wurzd, or Root of Scarcity, as it 

 has been called. 



(Read I4>th December 1813.} 



I HAVE directed to you a box, containing, a- 

 mong other trivial articles, a few pounds of 

 Mangold Wurzel seeds from different sources 

 and correspondents. 



When I introduced the knowledge and culti- 

 vation of this seed about forty years ago, I 

 met with some approbation, and much ridicule. 

 Even Peter Pindar was pleased to devote a few 

 lines to me, as well as to Sir Joseph Banks, in 

 his Emperor of Morocco. But time and experi- 

 ment have now established it as the most pro- 

 ductive vegetable in Europe. On my request 

 to Sir Mordaunt Martin of Burnbam, Norfolk,, 

 by whose steady perseverance this root was pre- 



