312 | [ AssEMBLY 
clay. The fibrous roots in the upper layers of the soil are numerous 
but short, the longest ones appearing to extend but about fourteen 
inches from the main root. Considering the proportion of the roots 
that lie deep in the soil, the parsnip-is a-deep-rooting plant, 
CARROT. 
The root system of the carrot, as compared with that of the beet, 
is very small. September 16 we examined the roots of a plant each 
of the French Forcing and Long Red Altrincham varieties. Of 
both the tap root was small and soon tapered into a filament. We 
traced it downward sixteen inches, at which depth it was too deli- 
cate to follow further. The horizontal roots apparently extended 
little more than a foot. The fibrous roots chiefly proceeded from 
the tap root, though a few started from near the base of the thick- 
ened part. These extended both deep and shallow, some rising 
nearly or quite to the surface, while others apparently penetrated as 
deeply as did the tap root. 
It would appeai from the slight extent of the horizontal roots in 
the parsnip and carrot, that these would prosper under closer plant- 
ing than the beet can endure, though we believe it is usually recom- 
mended to plant the three at about the same distances. 
The beet and carrot are biennials, forming their thickened roots 
the first season, and flowering and producing seed the second. In 
order to compare the roots of these plants in the first and second 
_ season of their growth, we examined, on September 17, the roots of 
a plant of each, that was set out in the spring to produce seed. The 
beet in this case was of the Early Bassano variety, and the carrot of 
the Long Orange. As the varieties were not identical with those 
examined of the first year’s growth, the two may not be strictly 
comparable. We note, however, that the leading roots in the plants 
of the second year’s growth extended quite as far as those in the 
first. The fibrous roots, however, appeared less numerous. They 
were certainly so in the beet. In the plants grown directly from 
seed, numerous fibres left the horizontal leaders and extended up- 
ward to the surface of the ground. Nothing of this kind appeared 
in the plants of the second year’s growth. 
The lower roots of the carrot were developed to a greater extent 
in plants of the second year’s growth than from those grown di- 
rectly from seed. 
How much of the stored material in thickened roots, like the beet: 
and carrot, is used in the production of seed is an interesting ques- 
tion. We observed that the roots that had supported the flower 
stem until the seed had formed and ripened, were not materially 
different in appearance from others at the end of the first season’s 
growth. A cross section of the root was entirely sound, and exhib- 
ited the concentric rings, as in the first season’s growth. To give 
an indication of the amount of nourishment that had been consumed 
in forming the crop of seed, we tested the amount of sugar in a root 
