The Mangel Wurzel

The elementary students were curious about the use of turnips (actually beets) as animal feed in the agricultural revolution that preceded the British Industrial Revolution. I did some searching and found one description with a picture. It also seems that the mangel-wurzel was at least in some areas of England the original jack-o-lantern and all those stories at halloween that talked about the use of turnips didn't explain about the kind of turnips/beets used for animal feed.

But my favorite find is about Robert Nichols who "refused to deny the rumour, current among younger Oxford poets, that he had been sent down from the University for throwing a mangel-wurzel at Lloyd George."