Page:Circular, United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Botany.djvu/183

 charcoal is scattered over the cut surfaces to prevent decay. The cutting is again covered with earth as before.

In order to keep the new roots of a uniform diameter, and to prevent their striking deep into the soil and becoming too slender, the beds are sometimes underlaid with a porous cement pavement, a foot and a half below the surface of the ground. This pavement checks the growth of the young roots and causes them to thicken.

The roots are allowed to continue growth until the end of September, at which time the harvest begins. The cuttings which have been two seasons in the ground, the first as vertical roots and the second in the oblique position, are by this time large enough for market. In digging the horse-radish a long-bladed mattock or spade is used which enables the digger to remove not only the obliquely planted cutting, which is the marketable product, but also the new roots from its lower end, of which the cuttings for the next year are to be made.

The roots are sent to market in neat bundles of several dozen. The uniformity in length and diameter is remarkable, the average thickness being about $2 1⁄2$ inches at the large end and $1 1⁄2$ inches at the other.

Restaurants keep their supplies of horse-radish quite fresh for several months by planting the roots in cool cellars in moist sand, and the cuttings held over for the spring planting are kept in the same way.

There is every reason to suppose that the Maliner Kren variety of horse-radish can be cultivated as successfully in America as in Bohemia, if the hand labor entailed by the removal of the small roots from the cuttings is not too great. But even should this additional expenditure of care prove unprofitable the selection to which this variety has been subjected will probably render it superior even under the methods now practised by growers in America.

Whether the variety, when introduced, will retain its superior qualities can be determined only by experiment. A quantity of cuttings has, therefore, been imported for distribution to the State Experiment Stations, and to special growers who are already familiar with the culture of horse-radish and are willing to take the pains necessary for a careful experiment.

Approved:

, December 15, 1899.