CARTERS’ NEW CENTURY IDEA, 
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE OF HIGH FEEDING VALUE. 
From ®f)e crimes, February n, 1901. 
The results of most field experiments involving 
the growth of roots are given on the assumption that 
one ton of roots — be they turnips, or swedes, or mangels 
—is as good as another. When, for example, the turnip 
crop is grown in order to test the effects of different 
manures, and the different mixtures of manures, the 
weight of roots yielded per acre is commonly taken as 
the sole indication of the comparative values of the 
several manurial dressings in the circumstances under 
which they are applied. We have, on more than one 
occasion, suggested that the roots themselves should be 
tested — that their specific gravity should be ascertained 
as well as the percentage and composition of the solids 
in their expressed juice — but it is not possible to. refer 
to any recent experiments where this has systematically 
been done. That roots vary in the percentage of water 
which they contain is well known, and it is at least 
possible that of two turnip crops the one giving the 
greater weight of roots per acre may actually contain 
less solid matter per acre than the apparently lighter 
crop. For feeding purposes the latter is the more 
valuable, and yet the manure that grew the bulkier 
crop would be regarded as better than that which grew 
the one returning a smaller gross weight per acre. 
Sheep-feeders have been told time after time that to 
give their animals a large quantity of watery turnips is 
a physiological blunder, because all the water in the 
roots has to be raised to the temperature of the blood 
of the sheep which consume them. But what effort has 
been made in the many field experiments which county 
council grants and other sources of income have rendered 
possible during the last decade to determine the per- 
centages of water contained in turnips of the same 
variety grown under different conditions, manurial or 
otherwise ? If little has been done to determine the 
percentage of water, still less has been done to control 
it. The high practical importance of the question is 
obvious when it is considered that a difference of I per 
cent, in the total solids of a crop of, say, 30 tons of 
roots per acre means a difference of 672 lb. per acre in 
the quantity of solid matter elaborated from the air and 
the soil— in other words, 672 lb. of water of no nutritive 
value is replaced by 672 lb. of solid matter of very con- 
siderable feeding value. Reflections such, as these are 
suggested by a perusal of the striking essay with which 
Messrs. James Carter & Co., 237, High Holborn, 
London, preface their new annual list of farm seeds 
and, to mark the beginning of another century, 
describe in some detail their “new method in the 
selection of root crops for seed.” The work has been 
in progress for a number of years, but the public 
announcement of the method followed and of results 
obtained has been reserved till the present as an appro- 
priate occasion. They point out that mangolds, for 
example, contain of water from 85 to 94 per cent. As 
the 94 per cent, coexists with 6 per cent, of solids, and 
the 85 per cent, with 15 per cent, of solids, it is obvious 
that a given weight of the one lot of roots would con- 
tain two and a half times as much solid matter as the 
same weight of the other lot, and their feeding value 
would be enhanced accordingly, though not necessarily 
in the same ratio. Swedes have 86 to 92 per cent, of 
water, yellow turnips 90 to 92, white turnips 92 to 95, 
carrots 85 to 92, and Kohl rabi 86 to 92 per cent. 
These figures indicate the difference in value between 
roots of close, firm, hard texture, on the one hand, and 
soft, spongy, watery roots on the other. As illustrating 
what it is in the power of the cultivator to effect by 
long-continued selection, associated with chemical anal- 
ysis of the roots, the case of the sugar beet is taken. 
In this plant, which is closely allied to the mangold, 
the proportion of sugar in the roots has been increased 
from 5 per cent, to a possible 20 per cent. It is true 
that Continental growers were occupied upon this work 
throughout the nineteenth century, but to increase the 
saccharine matter fourfold is a great result to attain. 
After describing their own experiments, Messrs. Carter 
enunciate the following conclusions : — (1) All roots 
have a tendency to contain an excess of water, which ir 
itself is valueless. (2) Some varieties contain water to 
a harmful degree. (3) A small deviation in the per- 
centage of water alters materially the value of the crop 
in feeding properties. (4) Five tons of one crop may 
contain as much solid food as ten tons of another. 
(5) The obvious necessity arises of ascertaining the 
weight of solids in any root crop. (6) The specific 
gravity of a root is a guide to its keeping quality. 
(7) The specific gravity of the juice is a guide to its 
feeding quality. (8) When the density is highest in 
both the juice and the whole root, the value of the stock 
is materially increased. (9) The increase of saccharine 
matter in mangolds and all other roots goes hand-in- 
hand with the increase of feeding matter. (10) The 
quantity of dry matter is not necessarily a determining 
factor in the feeding value of roots. The nature of the 
testing apparatus employed and the means whereby 
strains of roots of superior feeding value are fixed and 
perpetuated are described in sufficient detail in the 
essay. The great object in view— and it is one that 
deserves every encouragement — is to increase the quan- 
tity of available food produced per acre by the growth 
of root crops. 
