250 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



destroy the plants if their growth is checked by a hard crust. 

 When sown as soon after a rain as the land can be nicely 

 worked, the plants come up in two or three days, and start at 

 once into vigorous growth. You can not have the land too 

 smooth or fine to sow on, and after sowing you should run over 

 it with a light plank-drag. If you are putting in a large field it 

 will pay to hitch a horse at each end of a plank sixteen feet long, 

 and make a quick job of it. Turnips may be pitted with less 

 labor than potatoes, as they are not injured by a little freezing, 

 and do not require as much earth. I do not use straw in pitting 

 them, but throw the earth directly on the turnips. 



PROFITS OF THE CROP. Those near a city market, so that the 

 crop can be transported in wagons, will find them more profita- 

 ble, as they can watch the market and take advantage of a 

 scarcity. I have sold by the wagon load at sixty cents a bushel, 

 and by the car load at thirty-three, the buyer paying freight. 1C 

 I could contract all I could grow at twenty cents a bushel I 

 should put out large fields each year. I think it as easy to 

 grow two hundred bushels of turnips to the acre as forty of 

 corn, and, as stated, I have grown five hundred bushels. If 

 there is no demand for them, they can be fed to the stock. I 

 have found them of great advantage in fattening old cows, the 

 turnips keeping the system in such a condition that they could 

 eat and digest more grain, and thus be able to lay on flesh 

 rapidly. 



Beets and Mangold Wurzels. Perhaps no other plant 

 will give so great a bulk of food to the acre as beets. From 

 forty to sixty tons of roots have often been grown, and there is 

 one crop on record of over eighty tons to the acre. We have of 

 the mangolds the long and the round, or globe .shaped, and the 

 red and yellow in color, while the sugar-beets are white. Anal- 

 ysis shows that size is usually gained at the expense of quality, 

 and that roots weighing eight to nine pounds each contained but 

 about three per cent of sugar, while roots of from one to two 

 pounds each contained over ten per cent. 



Beets require a rich, deep soil, and for this crop deep plowing 

 is best. Early planting is advisable, and in this latitude the 



