Part 4

=The Long Varieties.=--Among the more prominent of these are the Ox Horn, the common Long Red, Norbition Giant, Carter’s Orange Globe, and the Silesian varieties of Sugar Beet. The Ox Horn is a very crooked growing variety, as its name would imply, with a small diameter in proportion to its great length. Growing almost wholly out of ground it curves about so in the row as to be decidedly in the way, is apt to break when pulled and in addition to these defects, storing very badly, it is not in any way desirable. The Norbiton Giant, Long Red, Gate Post, and Tankard are improvements over the common Long Red in a greater uniformity in their habit of growth, their size, and a less liability to grow hollow at the top at the advanced stage of growth.

=The Round Varieties.=--In these are included the common Red and Yellow Globe, Gate Post and Tankard, with some of the underground varieties of the Sugar Beet.

=Ovoid= are either red or yellow in color and are intermediate in form between the long and the round kinds.

=What Kinds to Grow.=--In this country the Long Red are the most popular, particularly the Norbiton Giant variety. While travelling in England, Ireland and France, for inquiry and observation, I found that the round and ovoid varieties were more generally cultivated than the long sorts. In my experience the ovoid varieties incline to grow smoother than the long kinds and hence are likely to bring up less earth with them, which on heavy soil is a matter of some moment. I think of the two kinds the yellow, under the same circumstances, makes the larger root. The long varieties pile better in the cellar, while the round or ovoids cut up rather more readily, appear less inclined to rot at the top, and are firmer fleshed. The globe and ovoid varieties appear to be best adapted to hard and shallow soils, and of these the Yellow Globe and Ovoid are especially valuable, as they are better keepers than most sorts and remain sound, without sprouting, until late into the spring, and with special care may be kept even into the summer season.

The long Silesian varieties of Sugar Beet vary from each other only in the color of the part exposed above ground,--being green, grey or red. The kind introduced to the American public a few years ago, under the name of Lane’s Improved American Sugar Beet, is a strain of Long White Mangold. The improved varieties of Germany and France yield about double the percentage of sugar that is found in the common Mangold, in some crops the proportion being as high as sixteen per cent. This would make the Sugar Beets of double the value of Mangolds for stock, but unfortunately, the roots under like conditions of cultivation, average but half the weight of Mangolds.

The average percentage of sugar found in analysis of beets grown in this country is exceptionably high. Having land free from alkalies, of unbounded fertility, readily accessible, and attainable at almost nominal cost, it is a serious question why we do not follow the example of other countries and raise our own sugar rather than import it. Our inducement is the home market that the sugar factory would afford for unlimited areas of beets, while the refuse pulp would enable farmers to increase greatly the number of their neat stock, to the advantage of the manure pile and enlargement of their area of tillage. The great draw back is the price of labor in our own prosperous country.

THE SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION.

In the matter of soil, Mangold Wurtzels will accept a greater latitude than any other root; thriving on every variety, all the way from light loam to muck, and from that to as strong a clay as is sufficiently friable for tillage. Muck (properly drained) and a strong loam are best suited to develop pounds of crop. Though the crop grown in the lighter soil is not so great it is much sweeter than when grown on heavy soil and when extraordinary quantities of manure have been applied, some of the heaviest crops on record have been grown on light loam. The great crop of Mr. Fearing of Hingham, of over sixty tons to the acre, was raised on a sandy loam. Some years ago I took a purchaser into the field where two lots of Mangolds were growing; he selected at once the large roots on the low land. I asked him to taste a slice of those on the upland, when he at once changed his preference. As a rule it will be found that those grown on warm upland soil are decidedly the sweeter and this fact has an important bearing on the feeding value of the crop.

If the soil is in good heart for a foot in depth, plough it to that depth before putting on the manure. After putting on the manure, if coarse, it will be well to cut it up with Randall’s wheel-harrow before ploughing under. After cross ploughing the manure four or five inches beneath the surface the aim should be to make a good seed bed by getting the surface level and the soil light and fine. On most soils this can be accomplished by a liberal use of the wheel-harrow followed by a fine-toothed smoothing harrow and that by a plank drag. An old barn door will sometimes answer for this, but as it is an excellent implement on the farm it will be well to have one. It should be about three feet wide and six long, with one side about ten inches high, meeting the bottom at an angle of forty-five degrees; the planks had better overlap slightly, as they will the better break the lumps of earth. The team is to be hitched to the turned up side, and the driver is to stand on the drag, driving it sideways over the land. The effect of such a drag in breaking up lumps and generally pulverizing the soil, will be found to be much superior to that of any roller. Should the soil be of such a character or in such a condition that the harrow and drag process will not make a good seed bed, there remains no resource other than to prepare it as for onions, either raking over the entire surface, or running over it three or more times with the Meeker Harrow.

THE MANURE AND ITS APPLICATION.

The kind and quantities of food needed to grow any vegetables is found by an analysis of that vegetable. Having thus learned the kind and quantity needed for any crop, the next step of the wise farmer will be to ascertain what manures contain the necessary constituents and which of these contain them in the cheapest form. A little knowledge of Chemistry, in its application to manures, is of incalculable value to the husbandman and no amount of experience and traditionary knowledge can serve as a substitute for it. I believe that it is in this direction that the great advance in agriculture will be made, and were there no other argument for Agricultural colleges the fact that they are prepared to give thorough instruction in this one department would be a sufficient reason for their existence, and for their liberal patronage by their several states. Prof. Voelcker, an excellent authority in everything that pertains to chemistry, in its application to agriculture, gives the following table as the average composition of the ash of the principal root crops.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF THE ASH OF ROOTS. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | |Number of Analyses. | | | |Potash. | | | | |Soda. | | | | | |Lime. | | | | | | |Magnesia. | | | | | | | |Oxide of Iron. | | | | | | | | |Phosphoric Acid. | | | | | | | | | |Sulphuric Acid. | | | | | | | | | | |Silica. | | | | | | | | | | | |Chlorine. +-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+ | TURNIPS. | 38 | 49.8| 7.8| 11.7| 2.6| 0.9| 10.3| 11.8| 1.2| 5.0| | SWEDES. | 7 | 38.9| 14.0| 12.8| 4.2| 0.8| 10.4| 13.7| 1.9| 4.2| | MANGOLDS. | 12 | 46.6| 18.4| 5.9| 4.8| 0.8| 8.3| 3.7| 4.0| 9.9| | SUGAR BEET. | 40 | 48.0| 10.4| 6.4| 9.5| 1.0| 14.4| 4.7| 3.8| 2.3| | CARROTS. | 10 | 37.0| 20.7| 10.9| 5.2| 1.0| 11.2| 6.9| 2.0| 4.9| | PARSNIPS. | 4 | 46.7| 2.7| 15.7| 6.0| 1.3| 15.8| 5.6| 2.4| 4.0| +-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+ | LEAF ASH. | +-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+ | TURNIPS. | 37 | 27.6| 5.1| 33.2| 2.6| 2.0| 7.3| 13.1| 3.5| 7.7| | SWEDES. | 3 | 21.9| 12.3| 30.2| 3.2| 2.0| 6.4| 10.6| 4.8| 11.0| | MANGOLDS. | 4 | 25.5| 23.3| 10.4| 9.7| 1.2| 5.4| 7.2| 3.3| 17.8| | SUGAR BEET. | 7 | 21.9| 16.6| 19.5|18.1| 1.3| 7.3| 7.9| 3.1| 5.7| | CARROTS. | 7 | 17.6| 18.2| 32.1| 3.9| 3.0| 3.8| 8.2| 5.2| 8.9| +-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+-----+----+-----+

This table shows us that the Mangolds require the mineral ingredients of manure in the following order, when arranged with reference to their importance:--Potash, Soda, Chlorine, Lime, Phosphoric Acid, Magnesia, Sulphuric Acid, Silica. In addition to these minerals other substances enter into the composition of Mangolds, the most important of which is Nitrogen. Barn-yard manure contains about all the elements needed by vegetation, but not always in the right proportion, therefore, when applying it, it is always profitable to know the proportions of the minerals which enter into crops that the deficiency may be supplied from other sources. It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that unleached wood ashes and the German Potash Salts, Sulphate and Muriate, are the cheapest sources for Potash at present known, while Soda and Chlorine are obtained from Muriate of Potash or from the waste salt of the fisheries. Of this I shall have more to say presently when treating of salt as an auxiliary fertilizer. Lime is obtained from the common Carbonate of Lime of the mason, either water or air slacked, and this usually contains more or less of Magnesia, or from wood ashes which is largely one-third lime. The great source of Phosphoric Acid is the bones of animals or corprolites, by which is meant the fossilized bones and dung of extinct animals; Sulphuric Acid is most cheaply obtained from Plaster, which is Sulphate of Lime.

Some hold great benefit is derived by the crop of the following year, from ploughing under the leaves as soon as the roots are topped; the value of this is just what the analyses of our table shows. The large crops reported as raised in this country, have been raised on soil ranging from light to a friable clay loam and have received all the way from eight to fifteen cords of barn-yard manure to the acre. In some instances this has been all ploughed in; in others half spread broadcast and ploughed in and the other half put in the furrows. When coarse and unfermented I would advise a deep ploughing of it under, in the Fall as with Carrots; other waste substances can be used as substitutes for barn-yard manure, care being taken either that such waste substances are specially rich in Potash, Soda and Chlorine, or that these substances be added. The equivalents given are roughly estimated under the article treating of the manure for Carrots and will be sufficient for practical purposes; I therefore make no further allusions to these cheap wastes as sources for manure, further than to mention that sea manures are specially rich in potash and soda.

Of all roots Mangolds are the rankest feeders, removing more plant food from the soil than any other root crop. The crop of Mr. Albert Fearing, of Hingham, Mass., was sixty tons of roots, and if the tops were in the usual proportion, of about one-third, they weighed twenty tons more, giving the enormous yield of eighty-tons of green food from one acre of ground. The crop raised on Deer Island, in Boston harbor, was about seventy tons to the acre; with a like proportion of tops the total yield must have been over a hundred tons. In the sewage farms of England eighty tons of roots have been raised on an acre of ground. Fearing applied fifteen cords of manure to his acre of ground; of the quantity applied to the Deer Island crop I regret I have not the data at hand.

If the mere bulk alone was to be aimed at in the crop, the problem would be a very simple one, but there are three points to be considered: first, how to get a crop that shall be great in bulk and at the same time give us the second desirable point, viz.: ripeness, and thus insure the third desirable point, viz.: the highest percentage of sugar it is possible for the roots to acquire.

This matter of the value of Mangolds, for feeding purposes, being in about the same proportion as the sugar present, though appertaining to that part of this Treatise which treats of “Feeding to Stock,” yet has so direct a bearing on the manuring of the crops that I will take it up at this place. The recent researches of that distinguished chemist, Prof. Voelcker of England, than whom there is no better authority, has thrown much light on the question of manure in its application to this crop. The Professor takes the position that the nutritious value of roots is in proportion to the amount of dry matter in them, and that the percentage of sugar present coincides with that of dry matter, the proportion of sugar rising or falling with the percentage of dry matter in the roots. That the feeding value does not depend on the proportion of nitrogen they contain, is proved theoretically, by the fact that the percentage is very much higher in the early stages of growth, before the crop is matured, than it is later in the season, while in the experiments of Mr. Lawes in feeding sheep, the lot containing the most nitrogen in the way of nutrition gave the poorest results.

Assuming with Prof. Voelcker that bulk should not be sought at a disproportionate sacrifice of sugar in the crop, and that certain soils and certain manures and certain methods of cultivation are more favorable than others to the development of this desirable proportion. I present extracts from his valuable article on “Root Crops as affected by Soil and Manures.”

“Land highly manured with rich dung from the fattening boxes or stables, induces luxurious and vigorous growth in root crops, and, as is well known, has a tendency to develop over-luxuriance in the tops. This is the case more particularly if the dung is derived from fattening beasts, liberally supplied with oil-cake and artificial food, rich in nitrogenous constituents. If the Autumn turns out fairly dry and warm, the roots in highly manured land continue to grow vigorously, the bulbs swell to a large dimension, and if the weather in September and October continues warm and dry, a heavy weight, and fairly ripe roots, result from the liberal use of rich dung. But should the Autumn be cold and wet, too liberal application of good, well-rotten dung is apt to maintain the luxuriant tops in a vigorous, active-growing condition, at a period of the year when the crop has to be taken up, and the result is an immature root crop, of a low feeding value. Although the bulbs may be of a good size, they turn out, when grown under such conditions, watery, deficient in sugar, and not nearly as nutritious as they would have been had a more moderate dressing of dung been put upon the land. The main cause of the immature condition and low-feeding quality of Mangolds grown with an excessive quantity of rich dung is the comparatively large amount of ammonial and nitrogenous constituents in the dung; for numerous field experiments have shown that the peculiar tendency of ammonia salts, and of readily available nitrogenous substances is to induce luxuriant leaf-development and vigorous and prolonged growth, which results frequently in a more or less immature condition of the roots. There is thus danger of over-manuring crops; and the desire to produce heavy crops of Mangolds not unfrequently leads practical men not to appreciate sufficiently this danger. It is quite true Mangolds are very greedy feeders, and no doubt some soils will swallow up almost any amount of dung; but at the same time it has to be borne in mind that all land is not alike, and that there are many naturally rich clay loams containing immense stores of plant food which requires only to be brought into play by good cultivation in order to become available to plants. I am much inclined to think that it is a mistake to manure soils of the latter description too liberally with dung, even for Mangolds, and that in many cases a more economical result, and certainly a better quality of Mangolds, although not so heavy a crop, would be given, if instead of all the enormous dressings of dung which are often applied to that crop, the lands were manured in Autumn with only half the quantity of dung, and the seed drilled in with three to four cwt. of superphosphate or dissolved bones, which manures, as we shall see presently have a tendency to produce early maturity in roots. We frequently hear of complaints that Mangolds scour, or do not keep well. Complaints of this kind are only expressions in other words for the immature condition of the roots, and in many cases the cause of this undesirable condition has to be sought in the excessive amount of ammonial or nitrogenous constituents which are applied to the Mangolds in the shape of heavy dressings of dung. The same remarks apply with equal force to the exclusive and to abundant use of sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, and nitrogenous manures in general. The special effect of all ammonial and nitrogenous manures in general, as already stated, is to produce luxuriant leaf development, to induce prolonged and vigorous growth, resulting in an immature and watery condition of the bulbs.

“Large roots, generally speaking, are far less nutritious than better matured roots of a moderate size. For illustration of this fact I quote the following comparative analyses:

+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | |Water. | | | |Nitrogenous Constituents. | | | | |Sugar, Pectine, &c. | | | | | |Crude Fibre. | | | | | | | Ash. | +----------------------+-------+------+-------+------+------+ | Mangolds 9 lbs. | 91.85 | 1.34 | 2.86 | 2.54 | 1.41 | | “ 7½ lbs. | 89.48 | 1.24 | 3.95 | 4.51 | .82 | | “ 4 lbs. | 89.77 | 0.73 | 7.68 | .89 | .93 | | “ 1 to 2 lbs. | 86.90 | 0.61 | 10.51 | 1.07 | .91 | +----------------------+-------+------+-------+------+------+

“Small Mangolds approach Sugar Beets in composition, whilst large Sugar Beets are hardly better than common Mangolds, and monster beets are even less nutritious than well-matured Mangolds of fair average size. Monster roots, as is well known, are always very watery, poor in sugar, and almost useless for feeding purposes.

“Big Berkshire beets,--one weighing 16 pounds and the other 12¼ pounds,--contained only 3.89 or 4 per cent. of sugar respectively, and in round numbers as much as 91½ per cent. of water. This high percentage of water is accompanied by a larger amount of albuminous compounds and of mineral matter, than the proportions in roots, containing very much more solid feeding matter. A large amount of albuminous matter and of ash, indeed indicates immaturity and poverty in sugar, a characteristic of big, excessively manured roots.

“Generally speaking, all nitrogenous manure, either should not be used at all, or only sparingly, for roots, on stiffish land, and all soils which contain a good deal of clay, are naturally cold and unfavorable to a vigorous and rapid growth. Light land, like most productive sandy soils and friable turnip loams, favors the quick and vigorous growth of roots, and is conducive to early maturity.

“Nitrate of soda has the same general effect upon root crops as nitrogenous manures, but it appears to be more energetic in its action, and, on the whole, to be a useful addition to home manures, and to increase the produce in roots more considerably than sulphate of ammonia. Its effect is specially marked upon Mangolds, and, to my knowledge, heavy crops of Mangolds have been produced upon rather light land by 1 1-2 cwt. of Nitrate of Soda, two cwt. of common salt, sown broadcast, and four cwt. of dissolved bones drilled in with the seed.

“Potash salts in some field experiments which I have tried in different parts of the country, have shown that Potash has a decidedly beneficial effect upon root crops, on poor, sandy soils; while on the majority of land, and notably upon clays or clay loams, or soils in a good agricultural condition, Salts of Potash do not increase the produce. The special effect of superphosphates, dissolved bones and similar phosphatic manures, is to produce early maturity; and hence phosphatic manures are employed in practice very largely, and with much benefit, by root growers. In free-growing, light soils, it is desirable either to use dissolved bones in addition to half dressing of farm-yard manure, as a manure for roots, or to spread broadcast 2 or 3 cwt. of salt, or 2 cwt. of guano and 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda and 2 cwt. of common salt, and to drill with the seed 3 to 4 cwt. of dissolved bones. On the heavier description of soils it is preferable to use mineral superphosphate for roots, especially if the land has been dressed in Autumn with a moderate quantity of dung.”

SALT AS AN AUXILIARY MANURE.

It will be seen by the table of analysis of roots, that the Mangold has in it a remarkably large percentage of Chlorine and Soda, the roots yielding respectively 9.9 and 18.4, while the tops give, 17.8 and 23.3. Salt being a combination of Chlorine and Soda, known to chemists as Chloride of Sodium, must therefore be a valuable auxiliary manure for Mangolds, that is, one to be used in connection with other manures. Practice proves what chemistry indicates. Prof. Voelcker tells us that “salt tends to check over-luxuriance in the tops, while it prolongs the period of active growth. In consequence of this specific action it may be employed with benefit as an auxiliary manure upon light land, in quantities not greater than five bushels to the acre.” Mr. Lewes, of New York, believes that by scattering over the surface, when the Mangolds develop the fourth leaf, four or five bushels of the refuse of the Syracuse salt works, which is about equal parts of salt and plaster, he has increased his crop ten tons to the acre. Mr. Lewes finds that salt tends to prevent a disease which sometimes attacks the leaves, known as “rust.” He states that it can be obtained at the works for about $3.50 per ton. Prof. Voelcker believes it would be injurious rather than beneficial on heavy land.