252 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
March  21,  1901. 
Taking  the  list  of  entries  and  exhibitors,  we  are  struck  by  the  wide 
ground  covered.  It  is  an  “  All-England  ”  business  by  All-England 
men.  Titled  ari-tocrat  and  tenant  farmer  cheek  by  jowl,  and  all  very 
much  on  their  mettle.  We  are  so  pleased  to  see  so  many  instances  of 
the  prize  going  to  the  breeder  who  is  also  the  exhibitor.  It  seems  such 
a  thing  that  one  man  should  take  all  the  risks,  and  another  man  all 
the  honours.  This  first  show  of  the  new  century  has  been  a  big 
success — first  in  point  of  numbers,  secondly  in  point  of  quality,  which 
is  evtn  better.  How  the  societ'  has  grown  !  Twenty-two  vea'rs  ago 
the  Shire  horse  trade  (from  a  show  point  of  view)  was  in  few  hands, 
and  Sntre  breeding  had  rejched  a  low  ebb. 
The  country  was  travelled  by  sires  as  full  of  blemishes  as  they 
could  be  ;  the  difficulty  was  to  find  one  decently  free  from  hereditary 
failings,  and  naturally  the  rising  generation  were  very  moderate. 
When  people  began  to  see  there  was  money  in  heavy  horses  a  start 
was  made,  and  now  the  class  ot  stallion  to  be  found  in  the  country  is 
quite  a  different  thing.  The  choice  is  not  left  so  much  to  individual 
enterprise,  all  round  there  are  associations  for  the  purchase  or  hire  of 
good  sires,  which  are  leaving  their  mark  on  the  young  stock. 
The  show  serves  several  purp  s  s.  There  you  will  find  types  of 
the  be.-t  breeding  po-sihle  ;  you  can  see  what  may  be  done  by  men  of 
your  own  class  (  whatever  that  class  may  be).  You  can  make  as  good 
or  better  invesiment  there  as  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  if  you  are 
lucky  enough  to  have  a  promising  youngster  you  may  turn  it  into 
hard  cash  tnrough  the  medium  of  the  auction  ring  or  by  private  sale. 
We  see  the  stock  sold  in  the  ring  realised  the  respectable  sum  of 
£19,00C,  besides  which  m  ny  charged  hands  ou  side  the  ring.  How 
the  old  names  do  recur  again  and  acain,  and  how  certain  types  are 
transmitted  along  the  generations  !  Some  animals  are  aptly  named  ; 
for  instance — Wa'ercress,  by  Hydro. 
It  used  only  t  >  be  in  the  higher  walks  of  equine  life  that  care  was 
taken  in  the  choice  of  names,  but  the  Shires  will  soon  have  a  poet  of 
their  own,  perhaps  another  Whyte  Melville,  who  knows  ?  A  totally 
different  class  are  to  be  found  the  second  week,  and,  shall  we  say,  a 
class  peculiar  to  Yorkshire  V  Certainly  so,  in  the  first  place.  The 
Shires  are  more  or  less  cosmopolitan,  the  best  hackneys  are  from 
E.  Yorks.  Tnat  there  is  good  money  in  hackney  breeding  has  been 
proved  again  and  again ;  but  it  is  not  work  for  the  ordinary  farmer. 
The  hackney  breeder  must,  besides  knowing  howto  make  a  fashionable 
animal,  be,  as  a  Yorkshireman  would  say,  a  good  foolfinder.  That 
sounds  severe,  but  a  wise  man  can  read  between  the  lines  and  grasp 
our  meaning  The  hackney  men  must  be  prepared  to  make  great 
outlay,  and  in  case  ot  “misfits”  there  will  be  serious  loss.  A  Shire 
not  fit  for  the  fhow  ring  will  always  find  a  job  on  the  land,  and  will 
always  earn  his  keep,  but  a  “wrong”  hackney  is  less  ea*y  to  place. 
Pony  breedii  g,  if  on  t'  e  right  lines,  is  a  paying  game,  but  we  fancy 
the  last  eighteen  months  must  have  been  a  bad  time  for  sellerp,  as 
their  best  customers  were  after  Boers,  not  polo. 
We  know  it  affected  the  hunter  trade  severely.  We  heard  of 
“meets”  in  the  crack  counties  where  the  proporiion  was  forty  women 
to  seven  men.  Quite  a  different  class  of  men  attend  the  last  week’s 
exhibition,  and  we  see  at  present  no  sign  of  decadence  in  hunter 
breeding.  Provided  a  farmer  is  a  good  horseman,  and  lives  within 
reach  of  hounds,  we  think  he  may  add  considerably  to  his  income  by 
a  judicious  deal  or  two.  He  must  make  himself  a  name,  and  always 
have  good  animals  “  on  the  Bhelf,”  and  he  will  not  lack  customers. 
We  are  told  a  “real  good  ’un”  is  a  rarity,  but  they  are  to  be  found, 
and  happily  so  far  t  ey  have  not  been  imported,  except  fr>m  Ireland. 
We  import  alumst  everything,  but  no  one  yet  can  beat  an  Englishman, 
and  for  choice  a  Yorkshireman,  in  breeding  and  making  a  horse  fit  lor 
the  first  flight.  We  say  “making,”  for  a  horse  needs  tutoring  in 
manners  as  well  aB  a  child,  and  “  pretty  manners  ”  are  always  at  a 
premium. 
We  hear  many  complaints  of  the  dearth  of  good  mares;  how 
fancy  prices  from  the  foreigner  tempt  poor  men.  This  is  a  pitv,  and 
more  than  a  pi'y.  It  is  all  very  well,  this  system  of  King  Premium 
sires,  but  they  must  be  mated  with  sound  well  made  mares. 
After  all,  a  good  Shire  is  the  safest  venture  for  the  tenant  farmer  ; 
the  expense  is  1>  ss,  the  risk  less,  and  the  profit,  though  not  so  big,  is 
more  certain.  There  will  always  be  a  demand  for  big  smart-stepping 
horses  for  the  towns,  and  the  town  wears  them  up  very  fast,  and  the 
town  is  prei  ared  to  pay  a  good  price.  As  we  said  before,  there  is  no 
lack  now  of  go„d  sires,  and  the  best  are  the  cheapest  in  the  end. 
Work  on  He  Home  Farm. 
At  last  we  have  the  weather  we  longed  for.  Not  much  March  wind 
certainly,  but  glorious  sunshine,  which  has  rapidly  dried  the  surface 
and  set  horses  working  in  every  direction.  The  land  is  being  broken 
up  for  drilling,  and  the  latter  process  will  soon  be  in  full  swing.  Turnip 
land  which  was  ploughed  before  Christmas,  and  has  since  been  left 
severely  alone,  is  with  the  aid  of  the  spring  cultivator  providing  a 
capital  mould,  and  Barley  will  go  into  a  first -rate  seed  bed.  What  the 
land  recently  eaten  off  will  be  like  we  fear  to  say  at  present;  it  has 
dried  rapidly,  and  must  be  ploughed  soon  if  horses  can  be  spared.  It 
will  turn  up  very  rough,  and  there  will  be  plenty  of  work  for  the 
heavy  roll.  This  implement  will  also  be  needed  for  use  on  the  young 
Wheat  plant,  which  is  looking  sickly  in  many  places,  and  is  probably 
suffering  from  the  attack  of  wireworms.  Rolling  is  the  best  thing  to 
check  these  pests,  and  it  will  do  good  in  any  case  on  land  of  a  light 
nature.  After  rolling  a  light  harrowing  would  be  beneficial  to  the 
Wheat ;  it  will  earth  it  and  encourage  tillering,  will  destroy  thousands  of 
annual  weeds,  and  in  many  instances  save  hoeing.  In  fact,  if  land 
were  as  clean  and  well  cultivated  as  it  should  be,  rolling  and  harrowing 
would  do  all  the  spring  cultivation  necessary  to  the  Wheat  crop.  One 
thing  is  pretty  certain,  and  that  is  the  well-nigh  impossibility  of 
getting  men  to  hoe,  even  if  the  crop  will  pay  for  it. 
Lambing  is  proceeding  satisfactorily,  the  report  still  showing  a  large 
proportion  of  twins  ;  the  mortality  among  ewes,  however,  is  strangely 
various,  and  that  it  is  traceable  to  previous  rather  than  present  causes 
is  shown  by  the  case  of  a  neighbouring  farmer  who  recently  purchased 
a  number  of  ewes  in  lamb.  These,  attended  to  by  the  same  man,  eating 
the  same  food,  and  occupying  the  same  field  and  yard,  are  lambing  with 
most  happy  results  and  no  loss,  whereas  the  ewes  which  were  already 
on  the  farm,  though  producing  a  good  crop  of  lambs,  are  being 
decimated  by  death.  The  owner  confesses  that  these  ewes  have  had 
more  roots  than  they  should  have  had  if  Turnips  had  not  been  so 
plentiful.  Ewes  and  lambs  will  do  harm  on  young  seeds  now  the 
nights  are  frosty,  and  they  must  be  kept  on  grass  as  long  as  possible. 
Swedes  might  be  cut  up  and  given  to  them  in  troughs  on  the  grass 
rather  than  waste  them  elsewhere. 
■ - ««#♦> - 
Sugar  Beet. 
Mr.  Sigmund  Stein  of  Liverpool,  so  well  known  for  the  great 
interest  he  takes  in  the  cultivation  of  Sugar  Beet,  has  made  an 
analysis  of  the  roots  grown  at  Newnham,  and  the  result  is  given  in 
the  f"llowing  statement,  with  a  comparative  analysis  of  German  roots, 
by  Mr.  F.  0.  Licht  of  Magdeburg. 
323,  Vauxhall  Road,  Liverpool, 
October  27th,  1900. 
Certificate  of  Analysis  of  Sugar  Beet  Roots,  grown  by  the 
Rig-lit  Hon.  the  Earl  of  Denbigh,  at  Newnham  Paddox, 
in  the  county  of  Warwick. 
Vegetation,  165  days.  Manure  used  :  ten  loads  farmyard  manure,  5  cwt. 
dissolved  bones,  2  cwt.  nitrate  of  soda.  Soil :  heavy  loam,  clay  subsoil. 
Previous  crop  :  Wheat.  Nos.  1,  2,  3,  4,  5  grown  on  the  garden  close  No.  372, 
Newnham  Home  Farm. 
Average  weight  of  roots  with  leaves 
in  grammes... 
Average  weight  of  roots  without 
leaves  in  grammes 
Degrees  Brix  (dry  matter) . 
Specific  gravity  . 
Quantity  of  sugar  in  100  parts  of 
the  juice  . 
Quantity  of  non-sugar  in  100  parts 
of  the  juice . 
Quotient  of  purity . 
Quotient  of  sugar  in  100  parts  of 
the  roots  . 
Shape  of  roots  . 
Seed  from  ^ 
1  2  3  4  5  & 
■+3 
Ti 
O) 
T3 
CD 
fl 
•  »— 1 
£_i 
rt 
•  F-H 
<3? 
© 
Compared 
F.O.  Licht 
deburg,  am 
10  Oct.,  1 
m 
a> 
T3 
00 
3 
D 
u 
pq 
Mette 
Vilmoi 
Vilmoi 
Elite. 
Klein 
Wanzl 
1764 
1681 
1423 
1642 
2010 
1072 
913 
947 
841 
750 
815 
616 
20-10 
21-20 
I9  60 
20-40 
21-30 
20-70 
1-084 
1-089 
1-081 
1-085 
1-089 
1-0864 
1770 
18-70 
17-20 
18-10 
18-70 
18-04 
2-40 
2-50 
2-40 
2-30 
2-60 
2-66 
88-06 
88-20 
87-75 
88-72 
87-79 
87-15 
16-00 
17-10 
1610 
17-00 
16-90 
All  well  shaped  roots. 
Remarks. — These  well  shaped  roots  show  a  very  satisfactory  result. 
The  weight  exceeds  by  far  the  German  weight.  Saccharine  contents  and 
quotient  of  purity  is  as  well  more  favourable  than  in  German  grown  roots. 
There  was  no  trace  ef  invert  sugar  in  these  roots.  I  consider  these  roots 
as  very  good  specimens  for  manufacturing  purposes. 
(Signed)  Sigmund  Stein. 
In  considering  the  above  analysis,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
quantity  of  sugar  in  100  parts  of  the  juice  and  the  qucuient  of  purity 
are  the  two  most  important  points,  and  though  the  quantity  of  sugar 
in  the  juice  of  the  roots  grown  at  Newnham  is  in  two  cases  less  than 
the  quantity  in  the  Magdeburg  roots,  yet  the  average  of  the  Newnham 
mots  is  more  than  for  those  grown  in  Germany,  and  in  regard  to 
quotient  of  purity  the  Newnham  roots  are  in  every  case  above  the 
German.  It  is  uiffieult  to  exactly  estimate  the  value  of  Sugar  Beet 
tor  the  manufacture  of  sugar,  but  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  those 
grown  at  Newnham  would  be  worth  more  than  25<.  a  ton,  so  that  it 
is  quite  certain  Sugar  Beet  could  be  grown  in  England  at  a  profit  to 
the  farmer  if  there  were  factories  at  a  convenient  distance.  Tnere  is 
one  matter  that  should  be  noticed  in  connection  with  the  analysis  of 
Mr.  Sigmund  Stein,  as  when  he  gives  the  average  weight  ol  the  roots 
it  muHt  be  understood  this  is  for  the  roots  sent  for  analysis,  and  not 
for  the  entire  crop. 
