152 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



eminence, and is now very extensively cultivated. The 

 common red beet (Beta vulgaris) is cultivated in gardens for 

 the sake of its delicate root ; but there is another species, the 

 chard beet (Beta cycla), inferior in the size of its root, but 

 remarkable for the thickness and size of its leaves, which are 

 yellow, white, green, or crimson, in different varieties. On 

 the Continent these leaves are used in soups, and the ribs 

 are stewed ; in England the leaves are sometimes substituted 

 for spinach, but they are held in little estimation ; yet cattle 

 are extremely fond of them, and the plant, which is very- 

 luxuriant, might be cultivated with advantage, as field 

 produce, in rows ; the more so, as it is an excellent substitute 

 for fallow on light good loams. 



If sown in May in drills two feet wide, and thinned out to 

 the distance of a foot from plant to plant, in rows, they will 

 produce an abundance of leaves, which may be gathered in 

 August and September ; these, a central bunch being left on 

 each plant, are rapidly renewed, affording a succession of food. 

 These plants do not sensibly exhaust the soil, and, what is 

 more, the leaves add much to the milk of cows, without im- 

 parting to it that disagreeable flavour which it is apt to 

 acquire when the cattle are fed upon cabbages or turnips, and 

 which is owing in some measure to the rapidity with which 

 these latter run into the putrefactive fermentation. The 

 leaves of the chard beet when steamed with bran, chaff, or 

 refuse grain, form a very good food for pigs, and also for 

 bullocks put up to fatten. 



With respect to field-beet or mangold-wurzel, its root is too 

 well known to need any description, nor need we comment 

 on its culture, which is most successfully carried on in 

 deep sandy loams made rich by repeated manuring. The 

 sowing time is May, and the roots should be taken up and 

 stored for winter use towards the close of autumn ; the top, 

 as well as the tap root, being removed, and the earth scraped 

 carefully away. They may be packed in the barn or root- 

 house, in layers alternating with layers of straw ; the whole 

 mass being then well covered and defended from the frost. 

 Or they may be put into trenches, having a good layer of 

 straw at the bottom and on the sides, till they rise in a ridged 

 pile three feet above the level of the ground, the whole being 

 then covered with straw, and a thick outlayer of the earth dug 

 out of the trench ; around the mound a drainage gutter with 

 free outlets must be dug, in order that no water may soak into 



