Were it not for the enormous bulk that an acre will produce in roots when compared with its yield in hay or grain, there would be a serious argument against the growing of them to any extent beyond what might be needed for medicinal purposes, in the fact that the manure made from them is of so low a value; and the practical weight of this argument would grow in proportion as farmers acquire a knowledge of the most important department of farming. To most farmers a cord or load of manure of cow or horse, is a cord or load of equal value; now this is far, very far from being the fact, as will be seen by the following table which I take from the _Scientific Farmer_, compiled by the celebrated Mr. Lewes, who, by his careful experiments, has laid the agricultural world under lasting obligation. In this table a ton of English hay is taken as the standard and were all the manure saved, both solid and liquid, from a ton of each of these varieties of food, the ingredients at the market value of the Ammonia, Potash and Phosphoric Acid would be worth as follows:-- Hay, $10.00 Clover Hay, 15.00 Oat Straw, 4.50 Wheat Straw, 4.16 Barley Straw, 3.50 Decorticated Cotton Seed Cake, 43.33 Linseed Cake, 30.66 Malt Dust, 28.33 Malt, 10.50 Oats, 11.50 Wheat, 11.00 Indian Corn, 10.50 Barley, 9.83 Potatoes, 2.33 Mangolds, 1.66 Swedes, 1.41 Turnips, (common,) 1.33 Carrots, 1.33 This table is very suggestive in many ways:--by it we see that there are varieties of food, the manure from which is worth more than the cost of the food itself. In its application to the feeding of Mangolds, it at a glance suggests the wisdom of feeding at the same time a portion of something richer and more concentrated. By so doing the quality of the manure is vastly improved and the crops will not be slow to discover it. There is still another reason for feeding these rich foods while using roots; it enables the farmer to feed with profit his straw or inferior varieties of hay. Says Prof. Stockhardt, “The full benefit to animals derivable from feeding roots is secured only when the proper proportion of substances rich in nitrogen are fed with them; accordingly, about two pounds of oil-cake should be fed with each hundred pounds of beet root, or other foods may be substituted in the same proportion as they are rich in nitrogen.”