[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—Your correspondent Mr. Wilson King asks what I mean by the word " mangel-wurzel " and where it is used. The answer is that the word is used in Germany, and means that very distinct variety of beet which is grown in fields and fed. to cattle. Mr. King's remark that " mangold-wurzel " is the usual German for red beet ie quite correct, but also quite irrelevant, for no one was discussing either red or sugar beet.
Thieme's Eritisehes Wdrterbuch, in full agreement with Bellew's German Dictionary and Bottger's Wdrterbuch, gives " Mangold-beet, white beet," but it also gives " Mangel-wurzel, root of scarcity, mangel-wurzel." I see that .the New English Dictionary, to which Mr. Russell refers, gives the form " mangel-wurzel " first place, and states that it is now the prevailing English form, though it follows with the alternative
mangold-wurzet." In view of the great authority of this ork, it appears that there is more justification for the term
mangold " than I supposed, but as this word denotes for Germans red oi white beet, would it not avoid confusion if it were never used for the plant known to botanists as Beta vulgaris vas campestris and to farmers as mangel P—I am, Sir, &c., HERBERT W. H. GREEN.
Bielford House, Leamington.
[We cannot continue this correspondence.—ED. Spectator.]
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