Agriculture is the most healthful, the most useful, and the most 
noble employment of Man.— Washington. 
VOL. SL NEW YORK, MAY, 1843. 
A. B. Allen, Editor. 
CULTIVATION OF THE'SUGAR-BEET. 
We have no idea that it will ever be worth 
while to cultivate the beet in America, for the 
purpose of making sugar; but as a table esculent, 
and especially as food for stock, we have found it 
on certain sqils, the most profitable root that can 
be grown. Although it has been extensively cul¬ 
tivated for'the last half century on the continent 
of Europe,its. value in husbandry has been singu¬ 
larly overlooked in England and America, and it 
is not till within the few past years, that it has 
become one of the general course of root crops. 
The cultivation of the sugar-beet is now rapidly 
on the increase, since public attention has been 
more particularly called to its merits, by a series 
of experiments made by Earl Spencer and other 
distinguished agriculturists, on ' its comparative 
value with mangold wurtzel, and turneps, in 
feeding stock ; the beet, so far as our information 
extends, having invariably proved much superior 
to the two latter roots in nutritive qualities. In 
addition to its greater value as an article of food 
over turneps, its yield is equally large, if not lar¬ 
ger, acre for acre; and on account of the destructive 
ravages of the fly, it is a much more certain crop. 
Mangold wurtzel is an inferior variety of the 
NO. \ L 
Saxton & Miles, Publishers, 205 Broadway. 
beet, and a coarse tasteless root, and wherever it 
can be cultivated, the sugar-beet succeeds quite 
as well; the latter, therefore, should invariably 
take precedence over the former, and leave it to 
become extinct, since it is so inferior in quality 
to the improved beet varieties. 
Latitude of Cultivation. —Beets may be grown 
from the equator as far up as the 45th degree of 
north latitude, but from 39 to 44 degrees is their 
best range in America. Farther north than this it 
does not ripen well, and to the south it is subject 
to be injured by the blister-fly and grasshopper; 
the summers also are too long and hot for it as a 
winter crop, and corn and potatoes answer a bet¬ 
ter purpose; still, if planted as early as garden 
vegetables in the southern latitudes, it may be 
brought forward for green food fdr the stock, about 
the time that grass gets parched up and fails, and 
thus answer a very good purpose. We think 
beets might succeed well among corn, planted 
sufficiently wide apart to admit a row of roots in 
the centre. In this case, the com would protect 
the beets from the too scorching rays of the sun 
at the south, and we should think add to their 
juiciness and sweetness by the shade of the stalks. 
Soil. —The best soil for the production of the 
