1858. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
195 
qualities. It is especially adapted to feeding late in 
the spring after the turnip has lost most of its nutri¬ 
tious qualities. There is a difference of opinion about 
the effect of the mangold on ewes with lamb, as with 
some here about oats, (Co. Gent., April 15.) In mode¬ 
rate quantities, we think it very improbable that either 
could be injurious. 
Our worthy friend of the Rural American , 
copies our remarks from the Co. Gent, of April 29, 
showing that the Hungarian Grass and Gorman millet 
are identical, for which we are greatly obliged. He has, 
however, made one mistake. The foot note which we 
appended to his letter, he has detached from where we 
placed it, and applied it to another and entirely diffe¬ 
rent sentence ; but this we are bound to suppose was 
not done with a view to deceive his readers. His com¬ 
ments on our article seem to be intended more as a de¬ 
fence of himself for selling the Hungarian seed at 310 
a bushel, than to show that we were wrong, and do not, 
threfore, require a reply from us. We may add, how¬ 
ever, that neither Messrs. Pease & Eggleston or our¬ 
selves, were quite as ignorant of the Iowa Hungarian 
Grass, as he seems to suppose, as we received a quan¬ 
tity of the seed, and a bundle of the grass, and identi¬ 
fied it, long before the editor of the Rural American 
seems to have been aware of its great value, and had 
we known that he desired to enter into the speculation, 
we could have informed him last fall where he could 
have got any quantity of the genuine Iowa seed at $2 
per bushel. 
The Beet Sugar Manufacture in France. — 
From an interesting letter by “ an English Farmer in 
France,” in the last London Farmer’s Magazine, we 
glean some facts as to the production and manufacture 
of this, perhaps, most important of French crops. A 
complete panic in the sugar trade was then in opera¬ 
tion, which had reduced the price of roots from 14 and 
18 shillings sterling during the last 4 years, and 21s. in 
last Oct., to 2s. 6d per ton in Feb., and after March they 
would, owing to their age, be worth nothing at all to the 
sugar maker. But such a state of things is rare, if not 
altogether unprecedented. The demand, with the pre¬ 
sent exception, is uniformly good, and the price remu¬ 
nerating. The crop is about 22 tons to the acre, often 
more—which would be at ordinary prices from 375 to 
3100, or a still larger sum per acre. “ French chem¬ 
ists tell us that the most sugary roots are produced on 
clay with a deep top-soil, and containing flint.” The 
land requires to be very clean, is plowed very deeply 
in autumn, well manured and sown from the middle of 
April to the end of May, with about 8 lbs. of seed per 
acre, either drilled, or dibbled with the thumb one foot 
apart, and subsequently thinned out when the plants are 
are up, to precisely this distance. Frequent hoeings dur¬ 
ing summer, and the pulling and cleaning when the tops 
droop and turn brown in Sept., completes the farmer’s 
part of the operation. The white Silesian and a variety 
of the Silesian with red skin and white flesh, are the kinds 
most used. The beet crop is a rather more exhaustive 
one than potatoes, but on the other hand is most of it 
. immediately returned to the soil—the tops and crowns 
not being carried off to the manufactory, and the fari¬ 
naceous part of the root which remains in cakes after 
the saccharine juice is extracted, being re-purchased 
by the farmer at about 16 cents per cwt., for feeding 
purposes, for which it is highly esteemed. At the man¬ 
ufactory the roots are well washed by steam power, 
macerated by machinery, and will yield in the hydrau¬ 
lic press 180 pints to 2 cwt. One ton of roots will yield 
1£ cwt. of brown sugar, one quarter cwt. of molasses, 
and 2£ cwt. of refuse for sale to the farmer, the value 
of all of which is computed at .£3 13s. 8d. 
Large Crops vs Large Farms. —There is a lesson 
of wisdom in the suggestion which follows : “ If our 
farmers, instead of laboring to double their acres, 
would endeavor to double their crops, they would find 
it a vast saving of time and toil, and an increase of 
profits.” Think of it, you who have spare capital for 
investment. Does your land produce you good crops 
now—is it up to the maximum of improvement? 
Time of Sowing Turnips. —Some facts are given by 
a correspondent of the N. E. Farmer , showing that 
late sown turnips succeed much better than early sown. 
A quantity of ruta baga and other turnip seed, was 
planted the middle of June on well prepared ground, 
and carefully tended. They did well for five or six 
weeks, but then turned yellow and began to rot at the 
heart—the crop proving a failure. Some of the same 
seed were sown a month later—left untended for six 
weeks—and then hoed and lightly dressed with guano. 
The crop turned out a remarkably fine one. Some¬ 
thing like this occurred in our own experience, last 
season. 
A Hint. —Systematic labor compared with that with¬ 
out plan or order, accomplishes far more, and does its 
work with much greater ease to both mental and physi¬ 
cal powers. Nor, as many suppose, is sameness and 
monotony necessarily connected therewith. 
War against Weeds. —Pastures are too frequently 
allowed to grow many weeds—thistles, mulleins, dock, 
may-weed, etc., occupy space stolen from valuable her¬ 
bage. Declare war against the intruders; cut, pull, 
and dig, whenever they appear, and they will soon be 
exterminated. 
Potato Culture. —The letter of “ J. R.” on the cul¬ 
ture of the potato—the rot, its causes, and preven¬ 
tives, has been some time-waiting an insertion, and we 
can now only give a brief extract. He says: 
I have arrived at the conclusion* from my experience, 
that the potato disease is caused by a moist warm atmos¬ 
phere and the presence of some substance in the soil which 
acts with the atmosphere in the decomposition of the po¬ 
tato, and not in any want of vitality or degeneracy of the 
seed ; and also that a new or virgin soil is most favorable 
for potatoes—land with plenty of vegetable mold being 
more favorable to the growth of sound tubers, than land 
enriched with animal manure. 
I have used unleached ashes with decided advantage on 
potatoes, not as preventive to rot, but as a stimulant to 
growth. In 1846 I used one bushel of ashes on eight rows 
of potatoes, and got one bushel to the row more than the 
rows adjoining, or any rows of equal length in the field. 
They were put on as atop-dressing just as the tops appear¬ 
ed above ground -so that one bushel ashes made eight of 
potatoes. Some have claimed that ashes are a preventive 
to the rot, but my experience does not coincide with that 
theory. 
In i857, some of my potatoes rotted badly, while a small 
patch where I spread some straw the year before, and had 
no other manure, there was scarcely a rotten one found. 
The straw mentioned was used for experimenting in rais¬ 
ing potatoes on the top of the ground under straw, but the 
mice destroyed the potatoes under the straw. I think 
there would have been a fair crop had it not been for the 
mice. There has been good potatoes raised in that way in 
this neighborhood. 
Draining Increases the Effect of Manures.— 
This was shown very satisfactorily on seven acres of 
wet land, mentioned in a volume of our State Tran¬ 
sactions, which, manured annually at the rate of twen- 
