THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 153 



the mound. When the roots are required for use, the 

 mound must be opened at one end, and after the requisite 

 quantity is extracted, the opening carefully covered up as 

 before. In either of these two modes they may be kept 

 till spring. 



There are few crops more valuable as winter food for cattle 

 than the beet or mangold-wurzel. Swedish turnips (or Ruta 

 baga) exceed them in the quantity of nourishment, weight 

 for weight ; but on light and well-manured soils the produce 

 of the beet per acre is much greater. According to Ein- 

 hof and Thaer, eighteen tons of mangold-wurzel are equal 

 to fifteen tons of ruta baga, or seven and a half tons of 

 potatoes, or three and a half tons of good meadow hay, each 

 quantity containing the same nourishment; but the roots may 

 be grown upon less than an acre, whereas it will take two or 

 three acres of good meadow land to produce the equivalent 

 quantity of hay. Of all these root-crops, it appears that the 

 least exhausting to the land is that of the beet. The mangold- 

 wurzel is admirable for bullocks, given with dry food, but cows 

 fed too largely on it are said to become too fat and to lose 

 their milk ; under some circumstances, however, this very 

 circumstance would prove an advantage, especially when 

 it is desirable to dry and fatten off cows, and prepare them 

 as soon as possible for the butcher. A white variety of 

 the beet is cultivated in France for the extraction of sugar 

 from its juice 



The carrot (Daucus carota), of which there are many 

 varieties, affords a valuable root for the food of cattle. In 

 England the large orange carrots are most frequently raised 

 in the fields for winter consumption, but on the continent 

 large white and yellow sorts are more esteemed. In Bel- 

 gium it is common to sow the white carrots in spring 

 amongst barley which is reaped early: as soon as the barley 

 is cut, the land is cleared of weeds and stubble, and liquid 

 manure is poured over its surface. The carrots which were 

 scarcely visible, and the tops of which were cut off in reaping, 

 now shoot up, and where they require are thinned by hoeing. 

 At the end of autumn the crop is carefully forked up, and the 

 ground prepared for some other crop. Where hay is scarce, 

 carrots form a very economical substitute : they must be kept 

 in dry root-houses or in trenches. From twenty to forty 

 pounds of carrots, with a small quantity of oats, is sufficient 

 allowance for a working horse for twenty-four hours : these 



