SILVER BEET.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 118, 16 May 1912, Page 6

SILVER BEET.

ITS VALUE AS A FODDER-PLANT.

■ The experiments that have bean, coudiueted at the Canterbury Frozen Meht Company's Work® at Belfast 'with, fodder crops have produced sotno interesting information regarding1 theyielding capacity and feeding quail ties of silver beet. 'All the varieties of -seed 'were sewn on October 7th, and each crop'Sv'as .weighed as ifc came to mattirity.' '&oadi-leaf .Essex rape cut on January 12th yielded 29.55 tons, gijiiit Essex broadleaf rape out on ■the same d'r.y weighed 38.54 tons; thousand-headed k;Je on February Ist weighed 23.24 tons! Chou Mo3llier and^ silver beet cut on February 29th weighed respectively 30.14 tou^ and 51.72 tons. , All the calculations' were reckoned at per sere. It wiil thus be seen that the silver beet took nearly six weeks longer than the rapr to como into profit, br.it it theTi o-u-vo nearly, double. the weight of feedc;<r<ipared'. with ordinary rape, though tl'iß was, ready for feeding so much earlier. Beyond the' leaf borer that has m-.i<lo its appearance in silver beet :\i d mangolds in "the South this season the beet was free from the risk of injury by pests.,' such for instance as that Vloti©. to. rape and turnips by tit" aphis bliglit. In. comparing the food-

ing capacity of rap© and silver beet it was omitted to weigh the sheep, rr a -portion of them, before and after being put on the crop. In the absence of conclusive figures it is, oJ: course, imj?<sfedblc to arrive at ?.nv • thing definite, but for the inf orijn.-i - tion of those who' have not had. experience with crops of silver beet it may bo mentioned that on January 12tn 223 sheep wave put,on themp?, where they rema.ined' fourteen dviys while on March 12th 243 sheep were put on the ; silver beet for fourteen dbys'. Mr Hopkins, .manager of the Belfast Freezing Works, reports to the Department of Agriculture upo^. the beet' that "it is the best for-ige crop of 'all; the sheep ate it greedily, and evidently improved upon ""it, which was very apparent. The sheep did not. run all over it, but went straight ahead', eating to the ground as they went. Since the stock wero removed I have given inter-cultiva-tion between, the rows, and the plants have now six inches of growth." In order 'to more, thoroughly test _ th" feeding value of rape and beet, in a comparative -sense, it is a pity th-il •the sheep were not weighed before and -after they had , been on the crops. The- test of .silver beet lias. however, so far been quite successful enough to warrant farmers giving Jt a practical trial next season for fuztening lambs and for winter feed.