100 
CARTER AND CO.’S GARDENER’S VADE-MECUM FOR 1802- 
Carrots should now bo sown. Mangold Wurzel too should be got in towards the end of the month. ICohl Rabi may be 
sown in drill, or in a seed-bed for transplanting towards the end of May. A bed of Cabbage seed should also bo put in. 
Land may be got ready for Swedish Turnips, which are sown by the end of next month; and Flax may be sown during 
April : Lucern and Sainfoin may also be put in. 
The horse-labour of the month, therefore, includes all field work connected with these several crops, and the hauling of 
manure out to the fields where they are severally to be sown ; also the horse-hoeing of the young Wheats and Beans, and 
Peas, with Garrett’s or other similar horse-lioe. 
The hand-labour includes hoeing of corn crops, gathering weeds and stones, spreading manure, dibbling and sowing various 
seeds. Potato-planting should be finished. Paring and trimming of turf may be carried on. Attendance on live stock is, of 
course, continued. 
Culture of the Carrot. — The principal sorts in which 
Agriculture is interested are the large White Belgian, large 
Yellow Belgian, and long Red Altrincham. Of these the 
White Belgian may be considered the most productive, and 
being nearly equal in nutrition to the Altrincham, is the 
one that is in the greatest demand for cattle food. 
The Yellow Belgian is considered to contain more sac- 
charine matter than the white. 
The Intermediate Carrot is a useful sort for shallow soils. 
There is no difficulty in obtaining If) to 18 tons per acre of 
the White Belgian Carrot, and enormously greater crops are 
somet imes grown. Thus, in the last number of the Agricul- 
tural Society’s Journal, a crop exceeding 30 tons per acre is 
reported, which was sown so late as the month of May. The 
end of April is the best seed-time for the Carrot. If sown 
earlier, the land, still cold, does not start the seed, and it 
germinates so slowly that weeds get up and almost choke 
the plant. To hinder this, in the case of tardy germina- 
tion, it is well to sow a few Turnip-seeds, or a few grains 
of Barley, along with the carrots in the rows, so that the 
position of them may be more early apparent, and then the 
hoe be set to work early enough to kill down the weeds. 
Carrots arc grown on all sorts of soils, but of course, like 
almost all other crops, grow best in deep loams. The land 
should receive deep autumn culture, and the dung should 
be ploughed in then. The land, if clean, will only need a 
harrowing down some time in April, and after a dressing 
of guano, 2 or 3 cwt. per acre, it should be rolled down 
as hard as possible : seven lbs. of seed is then sown in 
rows 15 inches or 18 inches apart ; and it may be well to 
mix the seed some days before with 2 or 3 bushels of damp 
sand, so as to hasten germination in the soil. The Sutfolk 
drill, without weights on its coulter, is then set to drill 2 
or 3 bushels per acre in rows of the required distance apart, 
and the mixed sand and seed is thus placed in rows as 
shallow as possible in the land, and brushed or rolled in 
the intervals, and hoed repeatedly during the growth of 
the crop, and the plants are singled to G or 8 inches apart. 
They are dug up in October and November by the fork, 
costing for digging, topping, and tailing and filling into 
carts, from 18s. to 24s. per acre, according to the crop. They 
are especially useful for Winter cows, and for use in the stable. 
Culture of the Mangold Wurzel. — This is still 
almost exclusively an English-grown crop. The climate 
which it likes is hotter and drier than that of the northern 
half of the island, and during the past year accordingly, 
which has been neither dry nor warm, it has not produced 
anything like so good a yield as it generally docs. Its cul- 
tivation is nevertheless rapidly increasing here : and its 
large productiveness, its comparative freedom from the risks ! 
attending turnip-culture, and its fitness as food for all kinds 
of stock at all seasons of the year , have become now widely 
known. There has been a long-continued prejudice against 
Mangold W urzel as being fit food for horse*, sheep, or cows, 
in farrow, lamb, and calf, under the impression that they 
caused premature labour and abortion ; and secondly, 
against the use of Mangolds for any kind of stock, on the 
plea that early in the season they are rather physic than 
food. Bot h of these assertions have been disproved now 
by ample experience. When pulped and mixed with chaff 
of straw or hay, in proportion determined by experience, 
they can be given to feeding stock without any undue re- ! 
laxation of the bowels : the dung shall be as firm as it is | 
desired, notwithstanding a very considerable admixture of I 
tliis succulent food, if only well mixed with the dry fodder ; I 
and even without actual fixture, sheep, and ewes in lamb, 
have been folded early in winter upon Mangolds in the 
field, being well supplied with hay-chaff in troughs, with 
every proof of their being in excellent health and condition. 
Swine, too, have been fed in yards all the winter on very 
little else than the half-rotten roots thrown to them from 
the heap, and no instance of abortion, and no instance of 
injury of any kind, has followed. The sharp weather of 
October 1851), by which such large quantities of Mangolds 
were spoiled on the ground, so that the farmer was induced 
at once to turn his stock on to them, that they might not 
bo utterly wasted, gave a capital illustration of the fitness 
of the root for food early in the season : and though it will 
still remain the distinction of the Mangold Wurzel that it 
is available as food all through the summer of the follow- 
ing year, keeping sweet and juicy long after common 
turnips and8wcdes have become dry and leathery and taste- 
less, yet the doubts of its fitness for food as early as any 
other root crop have long since been dissipated, and it 
would no doubt be possible (with the aid of a little fodder, 
to be consumed in larger proportions when the roots are 
first grown) to keep cattle well all through the year on 
Mangold Wurzel only. The sorts grown are very many : 
the globe-shaped varieties are better than the long ones, 
because the latter straggle over the ground above, while 
their roots are generally found to be more forked and 
ranging beneath its surface, so that they are more laborious 
to lift ; and the globes arc better also because of the smaller 
quantity of surface which is thus exposed to drought, 
and they remain juicy for a longer time next summer. 
The Orange and Red Globes grown from well-selected 
roots transplanted on to ground well but not too richly 
cultivated, will yield the best crop ; and when this selec- 
tion has gone on from year to year for several seasons, the 
habit of good and productive growth becomes confirmed. 
Every seedsman thus gives his own name to seed grown in 
this way. The Elvetham, and other long red varieties, are 
preferred by many cultivators, and unquestionably, like all 
other well-selected seed of whatever sort, yield large crops. 
The cultivation of the Mangold Wurzel is like that of 
Turnips ; and as the stiller class of soils may well be de- 
voted to this crop, it is well to do as much of the cultiva- 
tion of the land in autumn as possible. If possible, then, 
a corn stubble should be pared and burned, and ploughed 
and harrowed, and grubbed and harrowed and cleaned 
during October or early in November, and the manure, as 
heavy a dressing as possible, should then be spread broad- 
cast and ploughed in. In March or early in April, this 
should be harrowed and grubbed and reduced to tilth 
without the use of the plough. A dressing of 2 or 3 cwt. 
each of guano, super-phosphate, and common salt may 
then be sown broad-cast over the land, and the plough is 
then used to rib the land in drills at least 30 inches wide ; 
the seed, 0 or 7 lbs. per acre, is. then drilled on the top of 
the ridgelets thus formed, and rolled down. It should be 
placed not more than half an inch deep in the land. Each 
capsule contains 2 or 3 seeds ; and 4 or 5 lbs. per acre is 
therefore enough, though the larger quantity is generally 
considered safer. 
Or the land may be ribbed in autumn after the prelimi- 
nary clearing, the dung being placed in the drills and 
covered by splitting the intervening ridgelets. The spring 
dressing of hand manures is sown broad-cast over them, the | 
intervals between the ridgelets arc horse-hoed, and the 
double mould board plough sent down just to earth the ! 
