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fried, or in salad. They weigh ten or twelve pounds when transplanted; 
but when left in the ground where they were sown have weighed as high as 
twenty-four pounds. 
The ancients called the white Beet Cicla , or rather Sicla . bv contraction 
7 j 
from Sicula , Sicilian Beet; as we call the Savoy Cabbages, Savoys . 
Mr. Miller mentions three varieties of this: the White, the Green, and 
the Swiss or Chard Beet: by the last of these he probably intended the 
same as the modern Mangel Wurzel, or Racine de Disette. He affirms, 
that they vary from one to another in culture, as he has often experienced, 
but that they never alter to the common kind. 
An anonymous writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine (Yol. LYIII. 2. 
p. 8/2.) informs us, that three varieties appeared from seeds procured from 
Dr. Lettsom. 1. With leaves and stem dark green; which was the most 
common. 2■ With stem and leaves of a brighter colour; which he takes to 
be the white Beet. 3. With stem and veins of the leaves red; which he 
says is the red Beet. All of them have flowers in clusters from two to three; 
pistils from two to five; a leaf growing from the base of the flowers; the 
segments of the calyx equal, hunched, and membraneous at the edge.* Few 
plants flowering the first year, he concludes it to be biennial; as indeed all 
the garden sorts are, if not the wild Sea Beet also, although Linneus sets it 
down as annual, and Ray as perennial. 
Dr. Lettsom, who took much pains to introduce the Mangel Wurzel, 
informs us, that on his own land, which was not favourable to its growth, 
the roots, upon an average, weighed full ten pounds, and if the leaves were 
calculated at half that weight, the whole product would be fifteen pounds of 
nutritious aliment upon every square of eighteen inches.f 
* See also pp. 1043, 1044 of the same volume. 
f The following accounts of the culture of the Beet Plant, the application of its leaves as food 
for cattle, of its root for making sugar, of its syrup as yielding molasses and ardent spirit, and of its 
residuum for other useful purposes, have been lately sent from Germany, along with a sample of 
the sugar, by Mr. John Taylor, of Leipsig, to the Secretary, and by him communicated to the 
Society. 
Dear Sir, 
In compliance with your desire, I have taken some pains to examine into the 
merits of the various processes for preparing sugar from the Beet-root, and to gain information upon 
the culture of the plant. You well know that Director Achard, of Berlin, first introduced this sub¬ 
ject into general notice, and recommended that the sugar should be procured by boiling the Beet¬ 
roots, when taken out of the earth; that they be sliced when cold: that afterwards the saccharine 
5 K 
