4Q CARROT, MANGOLDS AND SUGAR BEETS. 



crop of Mr. Albert Fearing, of Hingham, Mass., was sixty 

 tons of roots, and if the tops were in the usual proportion, 

 of about one-third, they weighed twenty tons more, giv- 

 ing the enormous yield of eighty tons of green food from 

 one acre of ground. The crop raised on Deer Island, in 

 Boston harbor, was about seventy tons to the acre ; with a 

 like proportion of tops the total yield must have been over 

 a hundred tons. In the sewage farms of England eighty 

 tons of roots have been raised on an acre of ground. Fear- 

 ing applied fifteen cords of manure to his acre of ground ; of 

 the quantity applied to the Deer Island crop I regret I have 

 not the data at hand. 



If the mere bulk alone was to be aimed at in the crop, 

 the problem would be a very simple one, but there a:e three 

 points to be considered: first, how to get a crop that shah 

 be great in bulk and at the same time give us the second de- 

 sirable point, viz. : ripeness, and t ms insure the third desira- 

 ble point, viz. : the highest percentage of sugar it is possible 

 for the roots to acquire. 



This matter of the value of Mangolds, for feeding pur- 

 poses, being in about the same proportion as the sugar pre- 

 sent, though appertaining to that part of this Treatise which 

 treats of "Feeding to Stock," yet has so direct a bearing on 

 the manuring of the crops that I will take it up at this place. 

 The recent researches of that distinguished chemist, Prof. 

 Voelcker of England, than whom there is no better authori- 

 ty, has thrown much light 0:1 the question of manure in its 

 application to this crop. The Professor takes the position 

 that the nutritious value of roots is in proportion to the 

 amount cf dry matter in them, and that the percentage of 

 sugar present coincides with that of dry matter, the propor- 

 tion of sugar rising or falling with the percentage of dry mat- 

 ter in the roots. That the feeding value does not depend 

 on the oroportion of nitrogen" they contain, i ; proved theoret- 



