14 



will find it, although sweet, of very acrid flavor. But as it 

 will not grow to a large size, and as many of the plants are 

 apt to run all to top, I do not continue to cultivate it. All 

 the side leaves of a crop may be stripped off, after August, 

 without doing any injury, if wanted for sheep or pigs. 

 Roots are often exhibited of the marble kind as very fine 

 ones, but which in my opinion are not ; they are large, but 

 generally a very great part of the weight of the root consists 

 of a neck, which is hard, and has little, if any, nourishment 

 in it. My blood-red kind, which does not produce the 

 quantity of leaves as other sorts do, and therefore may 

 stand nearer together, is nearly as good at the very top of 

 the root as it is at the bottom. Information has lately run 

 the round of the newspapers, that steamed mangel wurzel 

 leaves are good for sheep. Ever since I have been a grower 

 of mangel wurzel my sheep have eaten the leaves with such 

 great avidity, without any cookery, that I have found it 

 necessary on their first having them, to give them a limited 

 quantity, for the leaves being of a very succulent nature, 

 they are apt at first to make them scour. It is best to give 

 them the leaves in a field where there is good fair keep, for 

 as sheep like variety in their food, they will not then eat 

 too many. Steamed potatoes are certainly much better 

 than raw ones for feeding cattle or pigs, but useful as a 

 steam apparatus at times may be, the practice of steaming 

 may be carried too far. A late breeder, and amateur 

 farmer of this county, the year before he died, had his hay 

 so spoiled by continual rains (flooded I believe), that his 

 cattle would not eat it till it had been steamed ; in this 

 manner the unwholesome food for all cattle, but particu- 

 larly for the young, was consumed ; the consequences were 

 that the purchasers of the cattle (of whom I was one), found 

 on their being slaughtered, that they had ulcers in their 

 insides ; I have no doubt this was the consequence of their 

 having eaten the bad steamed hay. My practice in getting up 

 mangel wurzel is thus : two men or boys lake a row each ; 

 by placing their hands on the crown of each root, and at 

 once pulling down, they strip off every leaf, which they 

 throw into the furrow between them ; two more go on each 

 side of them, and throw the leaves into the same furrow. 

 The roots of the two rows are pulled up by hand, to prevent 



