THE FEEDING VALUE OF ROOTS 9 



more sugar should be compared, and offered to supply the 

 seed. The offer was accepted, the seed supplied by L. Helweg, 

 the director of the Society's practical work, was sown in the 

 spring of 1889 on two large farms, a quantity of seed of each of 

 the two kinds being divided between the two farms. When 

 the roots were harvested in the autumn they were analysed. 

 It was then found that on the first farm the Elvetham and 

 Eckendorf mangels contained 10 per cent, and 8*8 per cent, of 

 sugar respectively, or that they were not very different in that 

 respect and less than expected. On the other farm the roots 

 of both kinds contained very much less sugar although grown 

 from identically the same seed as on the first farm. The 

 Eckendorf, which on the first farm contained 8-8 per cent, of 

 sugar, contained on the second farm only 4*5 per cent., and the 

 Elvetham only a little more. The explanation of this peculiar 

 occurrence that seed of the same strain of mangel gave such 

 widely divergent results on two different farms has been 

 investigated by Helweg, 1 and he has found that certain soils, 

 consisting of mud, such as are met with on land reclaimed from 

 inland lakes, have the peculiarity of producing roots with a 

 small contents of sugar and with at the same time a slightly 

 increased contents of other solids. Helweg grew 17 different 

 strains of 10 different varieties of mangels on ordinary soil 

 and on reclaimed muddy soil, and in each case these differences 

 in contents were found. On the average the 17 strains con- 

 tained of total solids 11-5 and 8*9 per cent., and of sugar 9*1 and 

 5 *8 per cent., respectively on ordinary soil and on reclaimed 

 soil ; but those strains which gave the best results, that is, had 

 the highest contents, on ordinary soil, were also the best on 

 the reclaimed soil. The soil of the root field on the second 

 farm was like such reclaimed soil. 



As the idea was to try the effect on the growth of pigs of 

 feeding roots with a high and a low contents of sugar or total 

 solids, it was decided to cart from the first farm to the second 

 a sufficient quantity of Elvetham roots in order to use them 

 for feeding the pigs there. On both the farms two groups of 

 pigs, called C and E, were fed with Eckendorf mangels, and on 

 both farms two further groups of pigs, called Cj and E lf were 

 1 " Om Landbrugets Kulturplanter/' K0benhavn, 1892, p. 173. 



