The White Sugar Beet is quite extensively grown in this country, and is employed almost exclusively as feed for stock; although the young roots are sweet, tender, and well flavored, and in all respects superior for the table to many garden varieties. In France, it is largely cultivated for the manufacture of sugar and for distillation.
Of the two sub-varieties, some cultivators prefer the Green-top; others, the Rose-colored or Red-top. The latter is the larger, more productive, and the better keeper; but the former is the more sugary. It is, however, very difficult to preserve the varieties in a pure state; much of the seed usually sown containing, in some degree, a mixture of both.
It is cultivated in all respects as the Long Red Mangel Wurzel, and the yield per acre varies from twenty to thirty tons.
White Turnip-Rooted.
A variety of the Early Turnip-rooted Blood, with green leaves and white flesh; the size and form of the root, and season of maturity, being nearly the same. Quality tender, sweet, and well flavored; but, on account of its color, not so marketable as the last named.
Wyatt's Dark Crimson.
Whyte's Dark Crimson. Rouge de Whyte. Vil.
Root sixteen inches long, five inches in diameter, fusiform, and somewhat angular in consequence of broad and shallow longitudinal furrows or depressions. Crown conical, brownish. Skin smooth, slate-black. Flesh very deep purplish-red, circled and rayed with yet deeper shades of red, very fine-grained, and remarkably sugary. Leaves deep red, shaded with brownish-red: those of the centre, erect; those of the outside, spreading or horizontal.
The variety is not early, but of fine quality; keeps remarkably well, and is particularly recommended for cultivation for winter and spring use. Much esteemed in England.
Yellow Castelnaudary. Trans. Vil.