GROWING ROOTS AND POTATOES 173 



Almost as important as the planting and manuring 

 of mangels is their after-cultivation. There is no crop 

 that pays so well for proper after- cultivation as does 

 the mangel crop. The land after the winter greens 

 will be clean, but, for all that, the crop should be 

 hand-hoed twice, and a grubber run between the 

 drills three or four times during the growing period. 



By attention to these details, and assuming too 

 great an area is not sown (that is, an area which the 

 normal staff of the farm can look after), it is sur- 

 prising what fine crops of mangels can be raised. 

 Occasionally one reads in catalogues of extraordinary 

 yields of mangels, but, on investigation, it will 

 generally be found that the computation has been 

 made by weighing a few yards of a drill, and 

 estimating the yield per acre. For a long series of 

 years the writer, by the method indicated, has had 

 an average yield of nearly 50 tons per statute acre, 

 every fourth load in carting from the field having 

 been passed over the weigh-bridge, and 10% of the 

 gross weight deducted to allow for adhering earth. 

 This yield is more than double the average yield 

 obtained. 



AN AUXILIARY ROTATION 



Latterly in connection with root-growing, the 

 writer has found it a decided advantage not to include 

 roots at all in the ordinary rotation, but to carry out 

 what may be described as an auxiliary rotation on a 

 piece of land in close proximity to the farmyard. 

 Such a method of procedure shows to greatest 

 advantage on a dairy-farm. 



As a rule (there should be no exceptions) pork 

 production is associated with dairy-farming, and 

 where such is the case a field near the buildings can 



