No. 9. 



Sugar Beet — The Veterinmnan. 



133 



tings, and then covered with earth. When 

 the shoots began to appear, the ground was 

 rnked to destroy the weeds ; some weeks 

 after a small quantity of earth was drawn 

 up to the rows ; this was all the dressing 

 they had. I believe the less the ground is 

 disturbed the better, provided the weeds are 

 kept down. They were dug in the latter end 

 of ^^eptember; the result as follows : 



PRODUCE. 



No. 1. Large seed, weight, Sl^ lbs. 

 No. 2. Small seed, do. 33 do. 

 No. 3. One cutting, do. 30i do. 

 No. 4. Two cuttings, do. 48^ do. 

 No. 5. Three do. do. 57 do. 



220i 

 Note. — They were Mercers, very large and 

 fine ; there was no difference in the rows, 

 either in size or quality — but in quantity. 



J. B. C. 



For the Fantieis' Cabinet. 



Sugar Beet. 



Upper Providence, Montgomery Cn. Pa. ) 

 JVoveniber 14tli, 1837. \ 



Mr. Editor. — Herewith I send you the 

 result of an experiment I made this season 

 in raising the sugar beet. I had seen, from 

 communications in the Cabinet, and learned 

 from other sources, that from live hundred 

 to a thousand bushels and upwards could 

 be raised on an acre. As 1 was somewhat 

 skeptical as to the amount alleged to have 

 been raised, 1 determined this season to 

 make an experiment, that I might know 

 whether I could raise any thing near the 

 amount said to be grown by others. I there- 

 fore prepared a piece of ground last fall for 

 this and other purposes, by ploughing it as 

 deep as I possibly could with four horses, 

 early in the spring. I manured it well, and 

 ploughed again, rolled and harrowed, and 

 threw it up into low ridges (by throwing 

 two furrows together) at the distance of two 

 feet apart; I then passed the roller over the 

 ridges again, and marked out for dropping 

 the seed, by running a very ligfht furrow 

 along each ridge. Of the ground thus pre- 

 pared I sowed something less than the twen- 

 tieth part of an acre with the beet seed ; 

 when the plants were up a few inches I 

 thinned them out to about eight or ten inches 

 apart in the rows, and kept them clear of 

 weeds by running the corn cultivator be- 

 tween the rows, and hoeing in the rows. 

 The produce was forty bushels, weighing- 

 fifty pounds per bushel, making a product of 

 eight hundred and eighty-six bushels to the 

 acre. I feel now well assured that one 

 thousand bushels may be raised in a good 

 season, and on good ground, on an acre. 



And of this I feel assured from the fact, that 

 the number of beets that would grow on an 

 acre in rows, two feet apart, and nine inches 

 apart in the rows, would be thirty thousand, 

 which, at 1.66Glbs. apiece, would make one 

 thousand bushels at fifty pounds to the 

 bushel ; and this, I think, would be space 

 sufficient to admit of their cultivation and 

 growth. In the piece which I cultivated there 

 were many places in which the plants stood 

 two and three feet apart in the rows, owing 

 to a heavy shower that fell soon after sow- 

 ing, and which, in some places washed out 

 the seed, and in others covered them up too 

 deep to generate. I did not discover that 

 the beets next those large intervals were 

 any better than where they stood about six 

 or eight inches apart. I had also a por- 

 tion planted with mangel wurtzel, but they 

 were nearly all destroyed by being over- 

 flowed, and covered so deep with mud as to 

 destroy them; those plants, however, which 

 remained, grew about as well as the sugar 

 beets. Another portion 1 had in v/ith ruta 

 baga ; I did not measure either the ground 

 or produce of them, but think they would 

 have produced about half as many bushels 

 to the acre as the beets. Should any of your 

 correspondents have ascertained by experi- 

 ment the relative value of ruta baga, sugar 

 beet, and mangel wurtzel as a feed for cows 

 and sheep,! would feel obliged if they would 

 communicate the result of their experience 

 through the columns of the Cabinet. 

 Yours, &c. 



Abel Fitzwater. 



I liave sonietimrs tlioiiglit, that it would have a ten- 

 dency to improve the neglected condition of Veleri- 

 nary Medicine, in the United Stales, if agricultural 

 Editors would establish a Veterinary Department in 

 their papers, for the reception of histories of cases of 

 diseases of brute animals, and such other matter as 

 property belongs to it. I do not pledge myself for 

 much assistance in carrying out the plan, if it should 

 be adopted— but iheieare probably a number of the 

 patrons of tlio Cabinet, who would be willing to lend 

 the aid of their observations, and experience, and 

 there could, certainly, be much valuable and interest- 

 ing matter, obtained from transatlantic books and 

 journals. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Tlsc VetcriJaarian — Wo. 1. 



VETERINARY COLLEGES. 



It is greatly to be deplored, that the peo- 

 ple of the United States, possessing as they 

 do, a vast and increasing interest in domestic 

 animals, do not possess a single Veterinary 

 College, wherein the nature and treatment 

 of the diseases incident to those animals can 

 be successfully studied, and systematically 

 taught. 



