Catalogue of ti?e Joseph flarris Sw<3 Qompapy 
5 
\\ r urzel ami S a S at ‘ Beets for (Rattle, Sfyeep 
apd Pigs. 
It is a matter of surprise that Mangel Wurzel and Sugar Beets are not more extensively grown for stock in this 
country. Of all root crops they are best adapted to our dry, hot climate. The yield per acre of actual digestible food, 
when the land is rich or sufficient manure is used, is enormous. On rich alluvial land heavy crops can be grown year 
after year with little or no manure. And even on heavy upland, in the celebrated experiments of Lawes & Gilbert, whfere 
roots have been grown forty-two times in forty-five years, 1000 bushels of Mangels are frequently grown per acre. 
Mangel Wurzel and Sugar Beets, when furnished with an abundant supply of manure and especially with available 
nitrogen, possess the power of absorbing an enormous quantity of carbonic acid from the atmosphere. In some of Lawes 
& Gilbert’s experiments with Mangel Wurzel an extra dressing of 86 pounds of available nitrogen per acre, enabled 
the leaves of the Mangels to absorb from the atmosphere an excess over the plots without nitrogen of over one ton of 
carbon per acre. This is stored up principally in the roots in the form of sugar. The first year of the experiment on 
sugar Beets, one of the plots produced 64,736 pounds of roots and 12,768 pounds of leaves—the roots containing 6,635 
pounds of sugar per acre. 
After growing Sugar Beets for five years, Yellow Globe Mangel Wurzel were sown, and the first year one of the 
plots produced 70,448 pounds of roots and 22,960 pounds of leaves per acre. The amount of sugar contained in sugar 
beets grown for stock, ranged in nearly two hundred determinations all the way from 10 per cent, to over 14 per cent. 
In Mangel Wurzel the range, so far as the results have been published, varies from as low as 5 per cent, to as high as 
12J4 per cent, of sugar. 
On the average, co mm on white Turnips, such as are grown late in Autumn, contain about 8 per cent, of solid dry 
matter; while Swede Turnips or Ruta Bagas, that are sown earlier and have a longer season of growth, contain 
on the average 11 per cent, of solid or dry matter, while Mangel Wurzel have on the average 13 per cent, 
of solid, dry matter. Sugar Beets, grown for stock, have a still higher percentage of solid, dry matter, varying, 
according to Lawes & Gilbert, from 16 to 18 per cent.; and in a recent lecture on the Growth of Root Crops, delivered at 
the Royal Agricultural College, Ciencester, Dr. Gilbert stated that “ the most improved varieties, cultivated for sugar 
making, and grown under the most favorable conditions, sometimes yield as much as 20 per cent, of sugar 1 ” 
Clearly the Beet, including the Mangel Wurzel, has not yet received sufficient attention in this country, where our 
climate is admirably adapted for its growth, either for stock or for sugar. 
The only objection we ha ye to Sugar Beets is that they will not keep as well late in the Spring or early Summer 
months as Harris’ Yellow Mangel W urzel. The latter we grow principally for the ewes and lambs and like to have some 
for the lambs till June or July. Sugar Beets are ripe and in good condition to feed earlier than Mangel W urzel. For feed¬ 
ing early in the Winter we prefer Sugar Beets to Mangel Wurzel, and if kept in pits or in a cold cellar they can be kept 
in fine condition till the mid die of May. And, as stated above, weight for weight, Sugar Beets are more nutritious than 
Mangel Wurzel. On the whole, however, we have not yet the necessary facts to determine which is the most profitable kind 
to grow. We are safe in saying that no farmer, and especially no sheep or cattle or pig breeder, will regret raising a 
good crop of both of them. If he wants to commence feeding early in the Winter he should raise the greater proportion 
of Sugar Beets. If he does not wish to commence feeding roots till near Spring he should raise more Mangel Wurzels. 
No breeder ever has too many of either. 
Setting oht ap Asparagus B ed * 
All that is necessary to have an Asparagus bed is the land and the roots. You have the land and we have the roots. 
We have several hundred thousand of as fine two year-old Asparagus roots as any gardener can desire, all of our own 
growth, and we are selling them this year at extremely low prices—lower than ever before and better plants. 
We have a bed of five rows, 60 yards long, three feet apart and the plants two feet apart in the rows, that furnishes 
a good sized family with all the Asparagus they want, every day, through the season and quite frequently it gets ahead 
of us, and we are able to make a present to friends. And that bed was planted with no more labor than it takes to plant 
the same amount of land to potatoes. And, it should be remembered that when an asparagus bed is once planted, it 
lasts a life-time. 
All we did was to mark out the rows three feet apart and then make holes three or four inches deep in the row, 
two feet apart, with a hoe, large enough to allow the roots to be spread out horizontally as they grow. We then spread 
out the roots and covered them carefully with a hoe and trod the soil down firm upon them. We took no more pains in 
preparing the land or manuring it than if we were planting potatoes. After the plants commenced to grow we culti¬ 
vated the ground between the rows and hoed out all the weeds between the plants. "VV e sometimes spread manure on 
the surface in the Autumn, and every Spring give the bed a top dressing of nitrate of soda, say from 4 to 6 pounds per 
square rod and sometimes more. In the Fall the Asparagus is one mass of the rankest growth and we have very early 
and very strong, thick shoots m Spring. On a large scale, mark out the rows not less than three feet apart each way. 
This requires 4,840 roots to the acre. There is nothing in agriculture or horticulture, in proportion to the cost, that 
pays such profits as a few acres of Asparagus, provided you plant wide enough apart, keep clean and top dress every 
year with nitrate of soda, and it may be with potash and superphosphate. 
