BEET-ROOT. 329 



mangold in many particulars, is more cultivated on the 

 continent than in this country, being there largely used for 

 sugar-making purposes, the refuse of the manufacture of 

 which is highly esteemed for cattle-feeding purposes. The 

 root, indeed, for these is more highly thought of by .Con- 

 tinental Agriculturists than mangold wurtzel. They have 

 long been famed, especially the farmers of Belgium, for the 

 splendid crops of the root ; and as much of their practice 

 is worthy of adoption in this country, and as it is peculi- 

 arly adapted to the mangold crop which we have noticed 

 in last paragraph, we deem that the following description 

 of the peculiarities of the Belgian mode of cultivating the 

 beet-root will be useful here. 



128. Numerous advantages follow the cultivation of beet- 

 root. "Necessitating," to translate freely the words of a con- 

 tinental authority, " the alternation of crops which have for 

 aim, in the rotation, the conservation in the soil of those prin- 

 ciples necessary to ensure a rich and certain crop of the 

 cereals, beet-root offers also greater chances of success than 

 other plants, by its comparative insensibility to the vari- 

 ations of the atmosphere, and by maintaining the soil in 

 that high condition which repeated hoeing and weeding can 

 so well secure. Its leaves serve also as manure, or may 

 be taken as green food for the stock at a period of the year 

 when green food is so rare and valuable. Finally, the 

 beet-root gives the possibility of augmenting the richness of 

 the upper by drawing in the fertilizing materials of the 

 lower soil. We know, in fact, that it is by means of the 

 long shoots which the plants send down into well-prepared 

 soil that they by processes of capillary attraction and of eii- 

 desmose draw the nourishment from the soil. The fila- 

 ments which form the continuation of the roots come neces- 

 sarily to appropriate to themselves the most part of the salts 

 which contribute to their formation, and which are in the 

 subsoil. Thus, these salts not taken up by the roots of 

 other plants are appropriated by the deep-reaching roots of 

 the beet-root ; and they possess, moreover, the capability to 



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