MANGOLD WURZEL. For many years this plant has been increasing in agricultural importance. When well grown it is a much larger root than the Swedish or common turnip, and as it is cultivated more easily and with greater certainty, at the same time that it is, during most of•the season, a better food, no wonder that its cultivation is increasing. It is more easy to get 30 tons of mangolds per acre than 20 tons of swedes ; indeed, the latter crop is becoming more hazardous and unsatisfactory year by year, while every year mangolds are increas ing in the estimation in which they are held. They are not liable to the attack of fly or caterpillar, and though a grub occasionally pene trates the leaf and eats out the substance of it, and though it is at midsummer sometimes attacked by a sort of canker, which appears to scorch the plant and check its further growth, yet it is much less liable to injury or disease than any other of our root crops ; and sown as it is earlier in spring time than the turnip, it is sure of sufficient moisture during its early growth. In summer time it stands hot weather better than the turnip, and in the autumn it grows More rapidly to maturity. It needs to be harvested, pitted, or otherwise protected, before frost comes on, as it is not so hardy as the turnip, and this is the only point in which it is inferior. The cultivation of mangold wurzel very much resembles that of the turnip crop. It is usual to give it a heavier dressing of dung than the turnip receives, and this on heavy soils, which it rather affects, may well be put on in the autumn, thus leaving for spring time less occasion for anything beyond mere surface harrow ing and stirring. The best way to prepare the land is, after a sufficient cleaning and stirring, to lay it up in ribs or drills ab least 30 inches wide, to cart on 10 to 20 tons of farm-yard dung, per acre and cover it up before winter, by splitting the drills with the double mould-board i plough. If this is not done till spring time, then before the dung is covered, it is well to sow broadcast whatever artificial manure is added ; as, for instance, 3 cwt.& of guano per acre, or 4 or 5 cwts. of a super phosphate, or blood manure. The splitting of the drills covers up this artificial dressing, at the same time that it gathers it somewhat together in the drill on which the seed is to be drilled or dibbled.
Seven pounds of the seeds are needed per acre, and they may be soaked for a day or two in water before sowing, if it be desired to have an early braird. If drilled a row comes up along the top of each drill, and is afterwards singled out to intervals of 15 or 18 inches. If dibbled, three or four of the seed capsules are thrust into the soil with the half-closed hand, which holds them, so as not to place them deeply, and soil enough is laid upon them by a sliding half-pressure of the foot. The mangold seed is easily buried ; half an inch of soil is more than covering enough. The seed thus comes up in bunches, the in tervals between the rows are horse-hoed, and the intervals between tho bunches are hand-hoed, and the bunches themselves are singled out by hand as soon as they are 2 or 3 inches high. Repeated horse-hoeiogs, and another hand-hoeing constitute the summer cultivation ; and after a moist season, on good land well manured, a crop of 40 tons per acre is not an unusual produce. At the intervals of 30 inches and 18 inches respectively between the rows and the plants, about 11,000 plants may be expected per acre, or about 5 tons for every single pound the plants may average in weight; and 8 lbs. a piece is not an impossible average weight to attain.
Among the sorts are the red and yellow, and white, as to colour, and the globe, long, and bulged, as to shape.
The long red Elvetham which has a bulged shape is one of the best; the globe mangolds are probably the best for retaining their juice and freshness till a late period in the following year ; for this is one principal advantage of this root, that it retains its value all through the summer, and is thus a most valuable food to keep for those awkward periods in a droughty season, which sometimes intervene between the successive forage crops on which the farmer depends for the continuous feeding of his stock. The mangold has hitherto been regarded as rather physic than food if taken early in the autumn; and there is an impression against it too as to its unfitness for breeding stock ; there is also a feeling that it exhausts the land more than turnips for the ensuing grain crop.