Cultivation of Beet. 



211 



to the farmer, from its early removal from the soil. On whatever 

 soi\, we would recommend the practice of mowing, bagging, or 

 reaping very low the wheat that grows on the land intended for 

 beet ; for, by adopting the practice of cutting low, we take time 

 by the forelock. The preparation of the land may begin imme- 

 diately the wheat shocks are removed, instead of having to wait 

 for the slow process of mowing and raking the stubble, which is 

 often left in such quantities. The early period in the spring at 

 which the seed requires to be planted, demands an early prepara- 

 tion of the land in the previous autumn. If we delay the process 

 of cleaning the land for a week or two after harvest has been com- 

 pleted, we may perhaps be obliged, from unfavourable weather, 

 to put it off till the spring, and then in all probability the land 

 will work unfavourably, and the sowing be deferred altogether, 

 and turnips take the place of beet, or the seed will be planted on 

 land part cloddy, and the other part held together by couch- 

 grass. If the stubble is very clean, it will merely require common 

 ploughing, and the early cultivation will be less important ; but 

 when the land is overrun with couch and other weeds, which is 

 too frequently the case after the wheat crop, the cleaning should 

 commence as soon after the wheat is off as possible : this is 

 effected by breaking up the land with the skeleton-plough, 

 or scarifier, the land harrowed and rolled, and then scarified, 

 across the first time ; or the skim-plougbing, the rolling, and 

 harrowing is repeated, and the rubbish collected by the harrows 

 in rows is removed from the land : if the land works very fine, 

 and the quantity of weeds considerable, they will be most effec- 

 tually removed by hand-raking, and afterwards picking up the 

 small pieces of couch. As soon as the rubbish is all removed, 

 and the weather and other more important operations will allow — 

 this may be about Christmas — the land is ploughed in 3-rod 

 lands, a subsoil plough following the common plough, stirring the 

 soil from 12 to 16 inches in depth. The subsoil-plough is drawn 

 by 3 horses, yoked to a steelyard whippletree : the horses in the 

 common plough walk on the land, and not in the furrow which 

 has been stirred by the subsoil-plough. The furrows of the land 

 are ploughed with horses at length in both ploughs, so that the 

 trampling of the horses on the fresh ploughed land is prevented : 

 in this manner the land lies light and pulverised for the action of 

 the weather during the winter, and requires no more preparation 

 till the time approaches for ridging and planting the seed, when 

 it will require nothing further than a slight scarifying, and har- 

 rowing and rolling. When from some cause or other the land 

 cannot be ploughed till the spring, the subsoiling is perhaps best 

 left out ; as it gives a looseness and hoUowness to the soil, which 

 requires in some measure to be rectified by exposure to the ele- 



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