408 BHESTING. 
BEET. 
accidental or designed, are often proved with quantity of flour. In the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ Dr. 
difficulty by chemical tests. Among such adul- 
terations may be mentioned sulphate of iron, 
alum, and salt, added under the name of Geer 
heading, to impart a frothing property to it. 
BEESTING, or Brestine. The first milk taken 
from a cow after her calving. Itis thick, yellow, 
and different in chemical composition from ordi- 
nary milk. If it be not drawn clean off after a 
cow’s first calving, she may not have a proper 
flow, or even any flow whatever, of ordinary milk, 
BEET,—botanically Beta. A genus of herba- 
ceous plants, of the goosefoot tribe. The species 
are seven or eight in number, and are distin- 
guished from those of other genera of the goose- 
foot family, by having a large succulent root, and 
a green calyx united halfway to a hard rugged 
nut. Three species are culinary; two are unfit 
for economical purposes; and two or three, be- 
sides varieties, are extensively cultivated in the 
field. The three-styled species is a perennial; 
and all the other species are biennials. 
The common beet, Beta vulgaris, is a native of 
the shores of the Mediterranean, and was intro- 
duced to Great Britain about the middle of the 
16th century. It grows wild in Egypt and the 
maritime districts of the south of Europe; and 
has long been cultivated in British gardens for 
the sake of its sweet, tender, carrot-like roots. 
The principal varieties of it are the green, the 
red-rooted, and the yellow-rooted,—wiridis, rubra, 
and lutea. The leaves of the green variety are 
used either as a pot herb in mixture with other 
vegetables, or a plain boiled esculent served to 
the table by itself; and the roots of the red va- 
riety are used for pickling, or boiled for slicing 
cold in salads, or eaten as a salad by themselves 
with spice and vinegar. The small red subvariety 
and the long yellow subvariety have the reputa- 
tion of being the sweetest, the most delicate, and 
the richest in flavour; and are cultivated with ex- 
traordinary care at Castelnaudary in France, and 
known to the French as the red and the yellow 
beets of Castelnaudary. Any of the varieties be- 
come forked in the roots, and comparatively desti- 
tute of succulency, when grown upon stiff or stony 
land, and can be obtained in perfection only on 
light sandy soils, which their roots can easily 
penetrate. The short or turnip rooted sorts do 
best for shallow or loamy land; and the long- 
rooted kinds are most suitable for light deep 
soils, The seeds must be sown in the end of 
March or beginning of April, and well covered 
with soil; the young plants, whether in drills or 
beds, must be thinned out to distances from one 
another of one foot in ordinary land, or of 18 
inches on land of the most suitable kind; and 
the roots for the table ought to be taken up in 
September, and stored with sand in a dry place 
inaccessible to frost, and wili remain good dur- 
ing winter, but will become stringy in spring. 
A good brown bread may be produced by rasping 
down the red beet root and mixing it with an equal 
Lyon Playfair gives the following account of experi- 
ments he has made to test the relative economy of 
wheat and beet as materials for making bread. ‘*‘ The 
average quality of flour contains from 10 to 12 per 
cent. of azotised principles adapted for the formation 
of flesh. The average quality of beet contains from 
15 to 2 per cent. of the same constituents. Let us 
assume 12 per cent. for wheat, and 2 per cent. for 
beet for our calculations. Now 1 stone—14 lbs.— 
of wheat contains 1.68 lb., and 1 stone of beet 0.28 
lb. of flesh-forming matter, from which the market 
value of all the materials fitted for the production of 
flesh may be calculated. A stone of wheat costs 2s. 
10d., and the same weight of beet, 2d. But the re- 
lative value of wheat to beet, as regards true nutri- 
tion, being 6 to 1, it follows, that 6 stones of beet, 
costing ls., are equal to | stone of flour, costing 2s. 
10d. In other words, the economic value of wheaten | |: 
flour to the consumer, at present prices [1847], is 
22 times less than that of beet for the same amount 
of food. This, however, is only one element in the 
calculation. Flour, on an average, contains 70 per cent. 
of starch, 5 per cent. of sugar, and 3 of gum; in all, 
78 of matter adapted for the support of animal heat. 
Beet has sugar instead of starch, generally about 8 
per cent., and 2 per cent. of other matters fitted for 
the same purpose, in all 10 per cent. Hence the 
quantitative value of wheat compared with beet for 
the important purpose of supporting animal heat is 
as 738: 1, (say in round numbers, 8:1). But the 
economic value can only be obtained by reference to 
prices. Now | stone of wheat costs 2s. 10d., and is 
equivalent in respiratory value to 8 stones of beet 
costing ls. 4d., so that in this point of view also, 
beet has a superior economic value. To reduce these 
calculations to a condensed form:—One stone of 
wheat costs 2s. 10d., and is equal in value as true 
nutriment to 6 stones of beet, costing only Is., and, 
in respiratory value, to less than 8 stones of beet 
costing ls. 4d. 
of beet as an article of food, at present market prices, 
is between 2 and 3 times greater than the economic 
value of flour. 
The field beet, or mangel-wurzel, is regarded | 
by some botanists as a distinct species under the | 
name of Leta aliissima,and by others as a hybrid 
between the red beet and white beet, or Beta 
vulgaris and Beta cicla, under the name of Beta 
hybrida. But, as it makes a prominent figure in 
agriculture, and is far more generally known 
under its German name than as a beet, we re- 
serve a notice of it for the article Maneuit-Wur- 
ZEL—The long-rooted beet, though a common 
name of a variety of the Beta vulgaris, is properly 
the name of a distinct species, which was intro- 
duced to Great Britain from the Caucasus in 
1820. This species is botanically as well as popu- 
larly named long-rooted,—Beta macrorhiza; and 
is readily distinguishable from all the varieties 
of Beta vulgaris by its usually growing to the 
height of six feet, while they usually grow to the 
height of only four. 
The Sicilian or white beet, also called the chard, 
Beta cicla, is a native of Portugal, and was in- 
treduced to Great Britain in 1570. Its root is 
seldom larger than a man’s thumb; its stem 
grows erect, and usually attains the height of 
about six feet; its leaves are oblong spear-shaped, 
and grow close to the stem; its lower leaves are. 
thick, succulent, and have broad footstalks, and 
In general terms, the economic value | 
i} 
