HOW TO GROW MANGOLDS. 165 



siderably without hurting them much ; and in the fall of the 

 year, from the middle of September to the first of October, 

 (when your crop should be harvested,) it is astonishing how 

 these roots will increase in size and weight. 



That is the process by which Swedish turnips can be raised. 

 I know there is no difficulty about it. I did not want the im- 

 pression to be left here, (and I know Prof. Stockbridge did not 

 intend to leave that impression,) that turnips could be raised 

 upon heavy clay lands, and with large quantities of nitrogenous 

 manures. 



Mangolds demand a different soil, and will have it. You 

 could not raise a mangold as big as a pigeon's egg in the way I 

 have advised you to raise Swedish turnips. It would be utterly 

 impossible. In the first place, you have got to sow it in a dif- 

 ferent time of the year. In the next place, you must supply a 

 different kind of food. Now a few words about raising man- 

 golds. Take a piece of good, strong, firm, well-cultivated clay 

 land, that will retain the manure well ; land that, if you put it 

 into grass, would raise three tons to the acre, and supply your 

 cattle with fall feed, and retain its fertility well ; land on which 

 you could raise the Marblehead cabbage at the rate of from forty 

 to seventy tons to the acre. You can find such land in almost 

 every valley. Plough that land early — not sod land, but land pre- 

 viously cultivated. Put it in as good tilth as you possibly can, 

 and as early as you can, and plough in seven or eight cords to the 

 acre of good barnyard manure ; not diluted manure ; not manure 

 full of sand or muck or straw or loam ; but good solid manure, 

 that has got compost enough in it to hold the liquids, and no 

 more. Put into your manure what will absorb the liquids, and 

 no more. Let the soil do the rest. There is compost material 

 enough in the soil itself, if you will only believe it — matter 

 which you are not obliged to transport. Plough in your ma- 

 nure once, and mix it up by another ploughing. Have that 

 piece of land well harrowed, and then drill it with a small 

 plough, and put into those drills a good supply of salt. You 

 had a lecture here, I understand, on salt. I wish I had heard 

 it. I believe in salt for certain crops, implicitly. Prof. Stock- 

 bridge talks about five bushels to the acre. I have put thirty 

 bushels to the acre for a crop of mangolds, and never got a bet- 

 ter crop in my life. Any farmer will tell you that the mangold 



