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CARROTS AND PARSNIPS—SUBSTITUTES FOR POTATOES, AS FIELD CROPS. 
CARROTS AND PARSNIPS—SUBSTITUTES FOR PO¬ 
TATOES, AS FIELD CROPS. 
Carrots for light, and parsnips for heavy soils, 
are excellent substitutes for potatoes, where the 
land is deeply worked, rich, and finely pulver¬ 
ised. They are doubly advantageous, in afford¬ 
ing a most excellent food for every variety of 
farm stock, and avoiding the risk consequent 
upon the tendency of potatoes to disease, within 
the last few seasons. There are few crops more 
certain than those of both carrots and parsnips; 
indeed, we scarcely know the instance of loss 
to either, from enemy or disease. Both are 
readily sown by a machine, which plants rap¬ 
idly and economically, ancf with much more 
precision and accuracy than can be done by 
hand. There is a great saving to the farmer, 
also, over potatoes, in the expense of seed, for 
while 10 or 15 bushels of good seed potatoes, 
necessary for planting an acre, frequently costs 
a dollar per bushel, the expense for the seed 
of either the parsnip or carrot, for an equal 
planting, will seldom exceed as many shillings. 
The cultivation may be performed with the cul¬ 
tivator, harrow, and light double-moldboard 
plow, with the aid of some small weeding, while 
the plants are young, which can be done ex¬ 
clusively by children or females. As the plant¬ 
ing should be always in drills, the lifting or 
harvesting is most readily done by running a 
small plow close to the roots and throwing the 
earth aside, when the long tap roots are easily 
removed by hand, or a pronged hook lately in¬ 
vented for this purpose. 
Another important advantage m«.y be men¬ 
tioned. The carrot and parsnip are not only 
highly nutritious, but the former is a light, diges¬ 
tible food for all animals, and especially for the 
horse, which it benefits beyond an equal quan¬ 
tity of oats when fed in moderate quantity once 
a-day. There is a peculiar principle contained 
in it, in comparatively large proportions, which 
not only promotes the rapid digestion of its own 
substance, but greatly and most favorably stim¬ 
ulates the digestive organs in their action on all 
other food that may be taken into the stomach 
when daily fed with carrots. The effect of this 
peculiar principle, which has received the name 
of pectin, is not confined to its action when fed 
raw, either to the horse or pig, or the ruminat¬ 
ing animals; but seems to be equally effica¬ 
cious when prepared by boiling and steaming, 
and fed to the human race. Besides the health¬ 
fulness thereby secured, there is great economy 
in the use of carrots in large families, where po¬ 
tatoes and shillings are scarce; for though not 
always as highly relished as the potatoes, yet 
they are exceedingly palatable and toothsome, 
when properly cooked, and especially when 
nicely sliced and boiled in a light, wholesome 
soup. Their uses for pies, and as constituents 
of bread, puddings, &c., are well known and 
properly appreciated by the initiated in the 
gastronomic art, where they not only serve the 
purposes of food, but afford a real delicacy for 
the more pampered palate. 
Of the varieties of carrots usually cultivated, 
the long orange is the best of the table kinds 
for its yield. It is also of fine grain and excellent 
flavor. Next to this is the large Altringham, 
which is prolific but rather coarse, yet a good 
table root. The early horn is of quick growth, 
and a choice esculent for cooking, but is of di¬ 
minutive growth. The white Belgian is by far 
the greatest yielder, and therefore best suited to 
a field crop where stock feeding alone is the ob¬ 
ject. It is not fit for the table; and is inferior 
to any of the other varieties in its nutritive 
properties, bushel for bushel, but probably 
much exceeds them in its aggregate value, acre 
for acre. It has the further advantages of being 
more easily harvested, in consequence of much 
of the root growing above the surface; and its 
appropriating a larger proportion of its constitu¬ 
ents from the atmosphere, than the other varie¬ 
ties, thereby lessening its draught on the fertili¬ 
sing matter existing in the soil. 
We may mention as one of the advantages 
possessed by the parsnip, that, in addition to 
the large proportion of wholesome nutritive 
matters which it contains, and its general adap¬ 
tation to the feeding of all stock, and more es¬ 
pecially to milch cows and swine, it requires 
no harvesting in autumn, but is preserved more 
securely in the soil where grown, than else¬ 
where, when it is properly drained and not ex¬ 
posed to standing water on the surface. The 
parsnip is not, however, so well adapted for 
feeding to horses, as either the potato or carrot. 
Qualey attributes to its too free use by horses, 
epiphora, or weeping; and it has been asserted 
that it will, in some cases, produce blindness, 
an effect which is never assigned to its use, 
however profuse, when fed to swine or rumi¬ 
nating animals. 
When the land has been properly prepared, 
the carrot affords one of the most certain and 
reliable crops. It is the experience of an Eng¬ 
lish farmer, that, where they were grown for 
fourteen successive years on from five to ten 
acres, but two crops produced less than 500 
bushels per acre, while the remaining twelve 
seasons, averaged from 500 to 1,200 bushels per 
