11 



for producing grain another year. If, by way of experi- 

 ment, a small piece of a field intended for summer fallow- 

 ing were mado quite clean in the spring, and an old barn 

 door were laid on it to shade it from the sun all the 

 summer, it would be found that the. land so shaded would 

 produce the next year more crop than the other part of 

 the field, which had all summer bten exposed to the sun's 

 rays. 



MANGEL WURZEL. Having for many years been a 

 grower of this root, I have often been asked which I pre- 

 ferred this, or Swedish turnips. My answer has invariably 

 been that for some purposes 1 prefer one, and for some the 

 other. For stall-feeding till the spring, turnips are the 

 best ; but at that season, the turnips having lost a great 

 portion of their nutritive quality, and the mangel wurzel 

 from keeping having lost much of its watery particles, and 

 thus improved, 1 then prefer the latter. It ought in fact to 

 be kept till the turnips are all consumed. Had our winters 

 of late years been as severe as they used to be in former 

 times, mangel wurzel would have been thought more 

 valuable than it hitherto has been. It must in any winter 

 be worth at least seven shillings per ton to be consumed 

 on the farm a crop of 30 tons, ten guineas per acre. Ad- 

 mitting expenses to be in most seasons (not in all), 30s. an 

 acre more than Swedish turnips, it leaves nine pounds an 

 acre, which is more than Swedish turnips are scarcely ever 

 value-1 at. Should it b"e unquestionably proved (which 

 I think it might), that a given weight of mangel wurzel 

 will produce as great or a greater weight in the animal 

 which consumes it, than the like will of Swedish turnips, 

 the cultivation of it would be of course much increased. 

 All herbaceous animals are fond of it ; and game, and 

 poultry. Those who have not a good depth of mould, free 

 from couch, and a good supply of manure, had better not 

 attempt the cultivation of mangel wurzel. If the land can 

 be made tolerably fine, it will grow on stronger soils than is 

 generally supposed it will, and where Swedish turnips will 

 not grow to be of any worth. Turnips will keep stacked 

 and buried all winter, but they do not improve by keeping 

 as the mangel wurzel does ; it is not the general custom to 



