STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 93 



a weight of 135 pounds * has been claimed in CaUfomia, and Gasparin in France vouches 

 for a root weighing 132 poxinds. 



Very Uttle can be ascertained concerning the history of mangolds. They certainly 

 are of modem introduction. Olivier de Serres,^ in France, 1629, describes a red beet 

 which was citUivated for cattle-feeding and speaks of it as a recent acquisition from Italy. 

 In England, it is said to have arrived from Metz ' in 1786; but there is a book advertised 

 of which the following is the title: Culture and Use of the Mangel Wurzel, a Root of Scarcity, 

 translated from the French of the Abbe de Commerell, by J. C. Lettson, with colored 

 plates, third edition, 1787,* by which it would appear that it was known earlier. McMahon ^ 

 records the mangold as in American culture in 1806. Vilmorin describes sixteen kinds 

 and mentions many others. 



Sugar Beet. 



The sugar beet is a selected form from the common beet and scarcely deserves a sepa- 

 rate classification. Varieties figured by Vilmorin are all of the type of the half-long red, 

 and agree in being mostly underground and in being very or quite scaly about the collar. 

 The sugar beet has been developed through selection of the roots of high sugar content 

 for the seedbearers. The sugar beet industry was bom in France in 181 1, and in 1826 

 the product of the crop was 1,500 tons of sugar. The use of the sugar beet could not, 

 then, have preceded 181 1; yet in 1824 five varieties, the grosse rouge, petite rouge, rouge 

 ronde, jaune and blanche are noted ' and the French Sugar, or Amber, reached American 

 gardens before 1828.' A richness of from 16 to 18 per cent of sugar is now claimed for 

 Vilmorin's new Improved White Sugar.* 



The discovery of sugar in the beet is credited to MargrafE in 1747, having been 

 announced in a memoir read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences. 



A partial synonymy of Beta vulgaris is as follows: 



Red Beets. 

 I. 



Beta rubra. Lob. 124. 1576; /com. 1:248. 1591; Matth. 371. 1598. 



B. rubra Romana. Dod. 620. 1616. 



Common Long Red. Mawe. 1778. 



Better ave rouge grosse. Vilm. 38. 1883. 



Long Blood. Thorb. 1828, 1886. 



II. 



Beta rubra. Cam. Epit. 256. 1586; Lugd. 535. 1587; Pancov. n. 607. 1673. 



Betiola rossa. Dure. 71. 1617. ' 



Betterave rouge naine. Vilm. 37. 1883. 



Pineapple beet. 



U. S. D. A. Rpt. 597. 1866. 



' De CandoUe, A. Ceog. Bot. 2:831. 1885. 



Sinclair, G. Hort. Gram. Woburn. 410. 1824. 



Wesley Nat. Hist. Book Cir. No. 71. 1886. 



'McMahon, B. Amer. Card. Cat. 187. 1806. 



'PiroWeL' Hort. Franc. 1824. 



' Fessenden New Amer. Card. 40. 1828 



Vilmorin Les Pis. Potag. 51. 1883. 



