PEACTICAL PAPERS—ROOT CROPS. 
363 
els per acre, individual roots weighing twelve to sixteen pounds 
each; and I have also in mind a prize crop of parsnips raised 
in the Isle of Jersey, in 1839, of 27 tons 8 cwt. per acre—80 
tons 1,440 pounds of the present day—1,229 bushels per acre 
at 50 pounds per bushel. The carrot will produce, usually, 
more than parsnips, and four bushels are considered as good 
for feeding as one bushel of corn meal. The principal value 
of carrots, however, is in feeding with grain, from its peculiar 
principal pectine, and its action on the digestive organs, ena¬ 
bling them to more readily assimilate the other food. But to 
return to the village farmer. Half an acre in beets will prO' 
duce 750 bushels, and the mature leaves, stripped off from 
time to time, will feed a cow at night and four hogs principal¬ 
ly during the summer and fall, and give for feeding for six 
months in the year, over four bushels per day, which will fat¬ 
ten one cow and feed another for milk; and a quarter of an 
acre of parsnips will thoroughly fatten the four hogs, besides 
feeding four more growing ones until the next spring. Thus 
the village farmer of five acres may raise one and a-half acres 
of beets, parsnips and potatoes, half an acre of other vegetables, 
one to two acres of strawberries and other small fruits, besides 
corn and other crops. 
The sugar beet, I believe, is destined to work a great change 
in the husbandry of many portions of our prairie land, and I 
see no reason, judging from its success in France and Grermany, 
why it may not only supply us with sugar, both for consump¬ 
tion and export, but, in the vicinity of the establishments for 
its manufacture, so alter the system of rotation, as to be of 
great benefit to the farmer. Its success, once established, will 
add millions to the agricultural wealth of the state of Illinois. 
It may be brought into the rotation once in four years, or of- 
tener, by the application of manure. A good rotation, where 
cattle are fed on the refuse of the sugar mill and the manure 
applied to the land, would be twice in a five-year rotation, viz : 
on sward trench-plowed, to be followed with small grain, then 
corn with all th(5 manure, then beets, to be followed by small 
grain and grass, half of the farm to be in grass all the time, 
