Subsequent care.—The object of wide rows, twenty-eight inches or more, is to facilitate the use of machinery. Since land is low in pi ice and labor is high, the aim should be to grow the maxi mum number of plants in a row and have as few rows as necessary to the acre and thus reduce the cost of production to its lowest point per ton. At least 30,000 plants should be grown per acre. The plants should be thinned to one in a place as soon as they have four leaves, or if thinning cannot be accomplished on time, they should be bunched by cutting out all plants except a little bunch every six, eight or ten inches as required, or by running the weeder across the rows. Singling to one plant may be done later. Two plants should not be left close together. The distance asunder varies with the different varieties, globes and tankards requir ing more space than the long varieties. Shallow cultivation should begin as soon as the rows are discernible and be maintained every seven or ten days until the tops meet in the rows.
As soon as the plants are thinned they should re ceive an application of fifty pounds of nitrate of soda, which may be mixed with 200 pounds of salt or with sonic acid phosphate to give it bulk. This should be applied near the plants, but not on the leaves, since it may burn them, and should be culti vated in. A second application may be given two weeks later.
Mangels do well after clover, or after an inter tilled crop which has been well manured, as cab bages or corn, or after a grain crop.' Sod land should be plowed one year before growing mangels on it.
Harvesting and are usually pulled by hand, the tops twisted off and the roots stored in root cellars or in piles in the field. They should be harvested when dry and should not be roughly handled. Sugar-beets are generally plowed out, or a beet digger is used. When pitted in the field the piles are covered with straw and soil to a sufficient extent to prevent injury from rain or frost. It is important to keep beets cool in storage and see that they are well ventilated. Freshly harvested mangels tend to produce "scour ing" in stock, hence it is not advisable to feed them until they have been stored for a few weeks.
Feeding mangeis.
llangels are grown for stock-feeding. The valu able ingredient they contain is dry matter, which is almost entirely digestible and is comparatively easy to digest. The method of feeding them has been to use them as roughage, but owing to their watery nature and the ease with which silage can be produced in many parts of this country, the general opinion is that the latter roughage is the more economical. Recently, certain Danish experi
ments have shown that mangels can be regarded as concentrated feeds with a large amount of water present, and in comprehensive trials it was shown that for milk-production one pound of dry matter in the form of mangels (equal to about eight pounds of roots) was as good as one pound of corn meal, and that this was true in both cases when mangels were substituted for three pounds and seven pounds of grain in the ration.
When fed to cattle, mangels are usually "pulped" or grated to irregular-shaped pieces about three fourths of an inch in size. British feeders frequently mix the pulped roots with chaffed hay or straw and let them stand twelve hours before feeding. For sheep they are cut into finger pieces, or else sliced.
Enemies. - _ Mangels have few troubles, and should any occur which cannot be controlled by good tillage and good rotation, it will be better to abandon the crop. The diseases are the same as those of the sugar beet [which see].
Parsnip. Pastinaea saliva, Linn. Hmbelliferce.
This plant is biennial, and is grown for its thick ened stem and root, which is used for human food and for stock-feeding.
The parsnip was doubtless known to the Greeks and Romans, and it has figured in most of the herb als written since the sixteenth century, showing that it was well known and was used as food. It was disseminated in the West Indies by 1564, was cultivated in Virginia as early as 1609, and was grown in other colonies later in the same century. The Indians of western New York cultivated it in the eighteenth century. Wherever it has grown readily it has tended to escape from cultivation and become wild. Seedlings from wild plants will assume the characteristics of the cultivated forms under favor able conditions.
The plant is generally considered to be a native of the Old World, but it has been so widely dissemi nated that it is found wild in many regions. It is grown to some extent in Europe, but is raised only sparingly in this country. Since the root grows entirely below ground, it is difficult to harvest, and being small in comparison with other roots, both in size and in yield, it is not likely to be grown extensively for stock-feeding.
The average percentage composition usually given is water, 86.3 ; ash, 0.7 ; protein, 1.6 ; crude fiber, 1.0; nitrogen-free extract, 10.2; ether extract, 0.2.