Is/LJ^JSTO-OTLJD -wtt^tzieXjS. 



What is a Mangold Wurtzel? A number of years ago 

 I raised a piece of Early Turnip Beet seed in a very isolated 

 location ; there was not another piece of Beet seed growing 

 within half a mile, at the least. A good deal of the seed 

 wasted, as is usual when the seed is allowed to ripen well on 

 lhe stock before cutting. From this waste seed thousands of 

 young plants sprang up, many of which survived the winter, 

 by the help of the protection of chickweed and snow. They 

 had got so far along when ploughing time came, I left the 

 piece unploughed, thinning them out that they might pro* 

 duce early beets. As the season advanced a good many of 

 them pushed seed shoots and ripened a crop of seed. Some 

 of the seed I gathered and the next season planted it to see 

 what it would produce. The crop was "everything ;" all the 

 way from a nice, dark colored Early Turnip Beet, through 

 different sizes, colors and forms, up to a light-fleshed Man- 

 gold Wurtzel. As the original Beets were a very pure Turnip 

 Beet, and during several years of careful cultivation for seed 

 purposes had shown no admixture with any other variety, the 

 experiment proved either that the coarse variety of Stock 

 Beet, which we call Mangold Wurtzel are but sports from 

 our fine-grained table Beets, or that the Beet class are 

 sports from Mangolds, — most probably the former. 



