Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-05-07
ROOTS.
A Crop Which, In Addition to Its Value
for Food, Has an Excellent Effect Upon
the Soil.

for Food, Has an Excellent Effect Upon
the Soil.
The culture of roots is not only use
| full for itself as productive of a most
| valuable crop for the winter feeding of
the stock of all kinds. but it has an ex-
| cellent effect upon the soil from the
good culture that is needed, for the
large quantity of stock food provided,
| and for the increased product of man
| ure which is furnished by the more
numerous stock. 1t has another and a
still more valuable effect than all these
in the discipline and instruction of the
| farmer himself in the higher branches
of his art. No farmer can expect to
| realize all these benefits very easily.
Nothing comes out of nothing" and
no man can gain all these advantages
without good deal of though and la
! Dor and determined effort. The farmer
| who has passed through the first lessons
and experiences, as we have. and has
learned how to grow full crop of
roots, knows fully the truth of what
we have here said. and the farmer who
has never tried a crop of roots, or who
has tried and failed, will know the
same, Uut in different way, because,
although he may have had no expert
ence or has failed, he will have feared to
venture, knowing the difficulties OF the
task. or he will have known by his
failure where he missed success and
will have learned by his failure how to
succeed in a new trial.
A good crop of roots will provide six
months good feeding for six head of
full-grown steers or for eight COWS, from
each acre, allowing sixty pounds for a
steer or forty pounds for COW daily.
We refer now to mangels, which are
really the easiest roots to grow and the
best for feeding, and are useful for all
the farm stock from horses down to
geese and fowls. 1t is one of those re-
mark able proofs so often afforded of
mans perversity that farmer will
grow crops for ensilage and build cost
" silos for the provision of succulent
food for winter use, and thus reach
by roundabout method the easier re-
suit h. might attain by growing a crop
| of mangels, which are easily preserved
in pits in the field in excellent condition
up to June of the next summer; thus
providing for full seven months of feed
ing. But this is a human popularity to
choose the most difficult way of reach
ing an end, and taking the longest way
round to get at any point. The fear
of the labor of good culture of the soil
is the cause of this. but it is very much
of Il bugbear after all, which dis
appears the moment it is at
tackled. 1t it now good sea-
son for considering what is in
volved i'll growing a profitable crop
of roots. There are, first, the soil; sec
ond, the planting, and third, the cult
walton. MangelS require good soil
to produce a tull crop, but if the land
is in good heart a large yield may be
produced. by the aid of the artificial fer
tilizers. The element mostly needed is
phosphoric ac.d, and if the soil is well
plowed and is given 600 pounds per
acre of a good special fertilizer, or of
fine bone, as large crop may be
grown as could be by the aid
of farm manure. In our own
practice we make use of both, and are
quite liberal in feeding this crop, be-
cause it not only pays well for it it
self, but the land is left in the finest
condition for succeeding crop of bar
ley, and seeding down to clover or
grass. or both. And just here we
might incidentally mention the advan-
tage of the introduction of this root
crop in a rotation. 1t follows the
corn, the corn stubble being plowed
and MANFRED in the fall, then cross
plowed and fortified in the spring,
the corn having been grown upon a
clover sod or grass after wheat or
rye. After the roots follows barley
seeded with clover or oats may follow
the barley. and The clover is then sown
with the oats. The clover lasts two
years, and the aftermath is plowed
under for wheat. This is the best
possible practice for grain and
stock farm, as it gives seven or eight
fields-wheat, corn, barley, roots, hay,
clover and pasture -affiording the larg-
est possible quantity of fodder and
feeding for the stock, two grain crops
for sale, and straw for litter and ma
nure. And the root crop is the pivot
and key of the whole rotation, deserv-
ing, therefore, we have said, the
most liberal treatment. A dressing of
600 pounds of salt per acre is of great
use, and with such management we
have grown 1,20O bushels to the acre.
The kind we prefer is the long red.
1t is the old standard kind and sur
passes the globe and other kinds in
several points. A test for one year, we
think. will convince every one who
tries it of the superiority of this good
old kind. Six pounds of seed are sown
per acre; this is large allowance, but
the seed is not always perfect, and a
good even stand is Indispensable for a
full crop. A hand seed drill does the
planting evenly and perfectly and the
rows should be thirty inches apart.
The cultivation needs to be thorough.
The first to be done is to cut out the
roots to ten inches apart with the hoe
or by running hand cultivator across
the rows, which is far better plan and
admits of cross cultivation, which is
beneficial in weedy ground. The horse
hoe is then run through the rows twice,
carrying it each time close to the right
hand row of plants and clearing the
ground up to the very edge of the row.
The next is to run pillow up and down
the middle, throwing the soil up to the
plants-when they have attained some
size and are not in danger of being
buried. The leaves grow rapidly, and
soon cover the rows and keep down the
weeds, but up to this time the ground
should be kept clean and mellow
HENRI !StetCart, IN N. Y. Times.