It is important that American farmers learn to attach much greater
importance to the culture of roots. The potato is the best of all roots
for feeding; but, as the yield has become so light in most localities,
and the demand for it for human food has so greatly increased, it will
no longer be grown extensively as food for animals. Farmers must,
therefore, turn their attention to beets, carrots, and parsnips.
Reasonable tillage will produce one thousand bushels to the acre of
beets and carrots, and two hundred more of parsnips. These roots, raw or
cooked, are valuable for all domestic animals. A horse will do better on
part oats and part carrots, or beets, than upon clear oats. For milch
cows, young stock, and fattening cattle, and for sheep and fowls, they
are highly valuable. With the facilities now enjoyed, they may be raised
at a cheap rate. Plant scarlet short-top radish-seed in the rows, to
shade the vegetating seed and young plants, and to mark the rows, to
facilitate clearing and stirring the ground, while the plants are very
young, and using the most approved root-cleaners, and the same amount of
food can not be grown at the same price in any other crops.