280 Account of the Species and Varieties of Beets. 



laid up in a store-room or cellar, secured from frost. As all 

 the varieties sport extremely, particular care will be required 

 in the selection of roots from whence seeds are to be saved ; 

 these must be carefully chosen true of their sorts, and plant- 

 ed out separately in the succeeding spring, when they will 

 throw up their flowering stem, and bear an abundant crop 

 of seeds. 



The large rooted varieties, which with us have been entire- 

 ly grown for feeding cattle, particularly cows, have by the 

 French and Germans been also used in the manufacture of 

 sugar, by extracting the saccharine matter from the roots, 

 though the large yellow kind before noticed was, I under- 

 stand, the sort principally used. All the varieties contain a 

 great portion of sugar, and the large sorts are perhaps only 

 preferred for this purpose, because of the greater mass and 

 weight of root, which a given quantity of land produces. The 

 large varieties are not suited to the table, they have little 

 flavour, and are of a very coarse substance. 



The well known kind, called here MangelWurzel, or Root of 

 Scarcity, and by the French Bette-rave ChampHre, Racine 

 de Disette, or Racine d'Abondance, was introduced into this 

 country, from Germany, in 1786 ; seeds were sent from 

 Mentz in that year, by Thomas Boothby Parkyns, Esq. to 

 Sir Richard Jebb, for the Society of Arts; some of these 

 were obtained by John Coakley Lettsom, M. D. who 

 having paid much attention to their cultivation, obtained a 

 further supply of seeds from France, and extensively distri- 

 buted them. The plant had become known in France about 

 two years previous to this period ; and a treatise on its cul- 

 tivation had been printed by the Abbe de Commerell ; a 



