198 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



frost, let them be lightly covered with leaves or 

 straw ; a hard frost injures them, and makes them 

 more liable to decay. They may then be taken to 

 a well-ventilated cellar, or be pitted in heaps of 100 

 to 200 bushels. The beet is rather apt to heat and 

 commence sprouting if thrown into large heaps or 

 packed away in the cellar. If put in the latter 

 place, any other roots except the turnip may be 

 placed at the bottom, and the beets on top ; and if 

 in pits, the same roots or straw may be put in the 

 centre. All the beets then have a good ventilation, 

 and an opportunity of throwing off the impure air ; 

 and to facilitate this, after covering the heaps with 

 dirt, holes should be made every few feet on the top 

 of them, and wisps of straw placed in such holes. 

 In this way the writer has experienced no loss or 

 deterioration in the value of the roots, but has pre- 

 served them till May as fresh, sound, and sweet as 

 when first taken from the ground the preceding fall. 

 In a climate as mild as South Ohio, they might be 

 preserved all winter in tolerably tight sheds and 

 barns. 



Feeding. — Throw the roots on to the ground or 

 floor, and take a hay-knife or spade, and a man will 

 slice up a bushel a minute sufficiently fine to pre- 

 vent cattle from choking with them. The best way 

 i(X cook them for stock is by steaming ; but they 

 cannot be kept after being cooked over two days in 

 warm weather, and a week in cold, without under- 

 going fermentation, and thus losing the saccharine 

 m'iitter so grateful to the taste and so essential to 

 nutriment. Either raw or cooked, my stock fre- 

 quently prefer them to meal or corn. In a raw 

 state, I think them as nutritious as any root what- 

 ever ; and, as far as my limited experience extends, 

 three bushels of beets with neat stock is equal to 

 one of Indian meal. Hogs demand less bulk to fill 

 themselves than cattle, and perhaps their value to 

 them would be about as four to one. 



