ABSTRACTS
From the IVth volume of the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society; Richard Peters, President; Wm. Tilghman, James Mease, George Logan and Robert Coleman, Vice Presidents; Roberts Vaux, Secretary.
1. The Sesamum Orientale or Be-ne, written Bene, for making oil of the seed, from Bengal, Africa, Georgia, and the Mississippi. See Archives of Useful Knowledge, by Dr. Mease; Encyclopædia Britanica; Accounts of East India Agriculture, &c. It is planted in the end of April and gathered in the end of September, in 32° N. lat.; raised also in 34° 50' N. lat. The oil is fine for salad, and all the other uses of olive oil, and may be extracted, as is the flax-seed oil, or by boiling water, to the top of which it will rise, and may be skimmed, and bottled or put into casks. It is very common on the west coast of Africa, and grows to most advantage on poor, sandy hills. It is said never to become rancid, but to improve with age. [Letter of Thomas M. Forman, Esq. Rose Hill, near Savington, Cecil, Md.] In the same letter is an account of Napoleon or Crawford RYE. It is described to grow very tall, having a solid stalk, probably capable of resisting the fly, like Jethro Tull's solid-stalked wheat. This grain is said to improve in the Cecil county soil and climate.
2. Plan of FENCES of living trees for posts, such as the Sugar Maple, and wire for rails; by White & Hazard, Whitestown, Philadelphia county, lowest falls of Schuylkill. Common fence for 100 acres, for 50 years, costs $3,080. Do. of wire fence for 50 years, costs $1,751. Add profit on trees, such as American black Walnut, curled or sugar Maple, Mulberry, Apple, (244 trees producing annually, at one dollar, $244) Buttonwoods, &c. which the projectors make to produce $14,098, in fifty years. Interest on annual produce sufficient to keep such wire and live-tree fence in repair, from the time of completion for ever. Other orchard lands can be spared. These fences are good against the worst cows;—they are easy to repair. Inquire at R. Watkin's tavern, at the falls of Schuylkill.
3. Accounts of LIME and KILNS, and cooking STOVES, in Spain; by Anthony Morris, Esq. formerly of Philadelphia, now of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, A. D. 1816.—In burning lime, the Spanish peasants use only the small Shrub or brush wood, not larger than a man's little finger to the size of a pipe stem. The kiln is like ours in Whitemarsh, &c. except that the top of the kiln is very little above the surface of the ground, and is covered with clay to confine the heat. The arch within is of such height as to give the full benefit of all the flame of those dry, light materials. The Spanish lime, like our best Pennsylvania lime, is very good. The Spanish practice is recommended, where lime stone is plenty, wood scarce, and brush, trash and weeds so abundant as to impede or injure culture. In the same letter is a cheap method, as to fuel, for heating irons; and an economical kitchen, as to fire, for cooking.
4. A letter from Mr. Jefferson, concerning the success of the Gypsum, or Plaster of Paris, in Albemarle, Virginia, 200 miles from the sea-coast; also concerning improved hill ploughing, by his ingenious son-in-law, Col. Thomas M. Randolph.[3]
5. An American Plough, approved in England; as is our Cradling Scythe.
6. Also, further notice of the Mangel Wurtzel, for the culture of which see the Philadelphia Society's Memoirs, vol. III. Seed of a new kind, called the orange-coloured Mangel Wurtzel, has been sent to President Peters by Robert Barclay, Esq. grandson to the old Apologist of Uri. The progress in the culture of this root, in Great Britain, is great. Mr. Peters thinks the mottled kind best, and recommends the greatest care as to seed. It appears in other parts of this volume that 60 to 90 tons of Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity Root, or the improved Beet, have been produced by an acre.
5. In pages 107, 108, 109 and 110, are some interesting notices of the Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity or Beet root, by Mr. Isaac C. Jones, of Philadelphia. It appears that this gentleman was led into some experiments, after an entire city occupation of 20 years, by reading some interesting accounts of such experiments in the European books. In April, 1816, a piece of ground, not quite one fifth of an acre, was planted with the seeds, in parallel rows, of two feet three or four inches one way, by one foot the other. On gathering the crop in November, 1816, it was found that it weighed 8180 pounds, and that the weight of the leaves, pulled off from those roots, at different times through the season, was 5,595 pounds. They would have been more, but as the season of 1816 was uncommonly dry, the pulling was omitted for some weeks. This plant is very valuable for farm stock, and most so for milch cows. The leaves are excellent through the summer, and the cut or chopped root through the winter, when dry food is used. The Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity root or improved Beet, is excellent for the table, and is preferred by Mr. Jones' family to the red or garden beets, which are abundant and very fine in the Philadelphia market. The same gentleman raised in 1816, on 23 square poles (23⁄160ths of an acre,) 110 bushels of the long or orange Carrot root, being at the rate of nearly 800 bushels to the acre. A bushel of those Carrots (cut with an approved instrument in the form of an S) weighed 47 lbs., and a bushel of the Mangel Wurtzel, cut in like manner, weighed 55 lbs. The Carrots produced 800 bushels, and the Mangel Wurtzel, at this rate, 900 bushels to the acre, each in the uncut state. As he planted the Mangel Wurtzel, Mr. Jones found it easy to dress with the plough and one horse. The Carrots, when up, require the hoe and the hand altogether. It appears, that the seeds of this plant, about which the utmost care is necessary, may be had of John S. Skinner, Esq. Baltimore, and Mr. M'Mahon, Philadelphia, and of the seedsmen in New York, Hartford, Boston, &c. The Mangel Wurtzel fell into some disrepute in England, about the year 1810, but the marchioness of Salisbury revived it. It was introduced into Ireland, in 1787, by seed from Dr. Letsom, of London, but the good qualities not being known, nor the culture, it fell into disuse in Ireland also. But a machine for the planting of it was invented by Mr. Edward Linsey, and now it is extensively cultivated there and much approved. The leaves produce two or more crops in the north of Ireland in summer and autumn, and those leaves and the roots in winter are deemed excellent for milch and beef cattle, in that great butter country. Irish sowing time is April and May. Preparation the same as for turnips and potatoes: two drills to be opened two feet apart; sufficient dung to be used, according to the state and quality of the ground. Then cover the dung with the double mould board plough, at once, or the single plough at twice, by ridging them up as high as can be well done, with a man shovelling between the drills, right and left, smoothing the surface of the dung, which will leave the ridge about a space of ten or twelve inches broad. This complete method of fallowing will repay the trouble of shovelling, by raising a full proportion of earth under the roots. When the ground is thus completely prepared, two boys or girls can sow from two to three acres per day. After sowing, it should be well rolled, which completes the process.
The crop is afterwards to be treated in the same manner as turnips or potatoes, by putting to and taking off mould, &c. After the roots have been raised, the ground is in fine order for wheat or any other crop.
Example of Cultivation.—Wolf M'Neil, Esq. Ireland, sowed one acre; from the leaves, fed 40 pigs through the seasons of last summer and fall; then gathered 84 tons of roots.—On these fed nine cows and five calves during winter, and had, on 22d April, 1815, eight tons remaining, besides 100 roots, which he transplanted for securing good seed, an all-important object in this culture.
(To be continued.)
[We recommend to our readers the purchase and study of "The Code of Agriculture," written by Sir John Sinclair, the first president of the public British Board of Agriculture. London edition, about 612 pages in one octavo volume; also, American Hartford edition, Connecticut. It is probably the first farmer's manual, or handbook, extant in our language, and was concocted by the labours of 26 years, and with the aid of 1000 persons.]
Valuable Breed of Cattle.
The attention of farmers being again called to the bull imported by Stephen Williams, Esq. of Northborough, we have thought it might gratify them to learn the high estimation in which cattle of the same breed are held in England.—About two years since, the stock of a celebrated agriculturist of that country, consisting of cattle of this breed, was sold at public auction: One two year old cow, sold for $1,544; one four year old cow, for $1,400; one five year old cow, for $1,726; a one year old bull calf, for $1,426; one four year old bull, for $2,898. And it appears by the catalogue, with the prices affixed, that 34 cows sold for $19,324; 17 heifers for $6,006; 6 bulls for $6,267; and 4 bull calves for $3,327—making for 61 head of cattle, the enormous sum of $34,924.
[Mass. Spy.
A DISCOURSE, READ BEFORE THE
Essex Agricultural Society,
In Massachusetts, February 21, 1820,
Suggesting some Improvements in the Agriculture
of the County.
BY TIMOTHY PICKERING,
President of the Society.
(Concluded from page 272.)
II. On Root Crops.
Premiums having been proposed to encourage the raising of Carrots, Rutga Baga and Mangel Wurtzel; and as these articles, cultivated extensively, are of vast importance to farmers; I can perhaps in no way better promote the views of the Society, in their vote before mentioned, than by describing the methods of cultivating those roots, which elsewhere have been practised with great success, but to which, and indeed to the roots themselves (Carrots excepted) most of our husbandmen are strangers.
The introduction of Clover, and subsequently carrying the culture of the Common Turnip extensively into the field, marked distinguished eras in the improvements of English Husbandry. At a later period, Carrots were cultivated by some farmers: and within a few years past, the Mangel Wurtzel and the Rutga Baga have become objects of general cultivation. And now these five articles constitute essential branches of the highly improved Husbandry of Great Britain.
Common Turnips. These for a long time were raised (and perhaps this practice is still very general) by sowing the seeds broad-cast, and weeding and thinning them with hoes, till the plants stood from a foot to fifteen inches apart. But the most correct practice appears to be that of drilling the seeds in rows, thinning them at the distance of ten or twelve inches in the rows, and hoeing and keeping them clear from weeds. And this weak, watery root has been the principal food of immense flocks of store sheep, during the winter; and when plentifully given, only with the addition of straw, has served to fatten cattle and sheep for the market.
Carrots, Even these plants, so long after they vegetate extremely small, were also raised from seed sown broad-cast. But this awkward practice, I believe, has generally given way to the row-culture, whether the seeds were sown by hand, or by the instrument called a drill. In very rich land, great crops have been raised where the rows were only from twelve to fifteen inches apart. The great crop of 752 bushels, weighing eighteen tons and three quarters raised on one acre, in Salem, by Erastus Ware, in 1817, was in rows about sixteen inches apart. The seed was sown the 14th of May. But I am inclined to think a preferable mode would be, to sow the seeds in double rows about ten inches apart, with intervals of three feet between the rows, so as to admit a small plough, as well as the hoe, in their cultivation. In this case, a deep furrow being opened by the plough, the manure should be regularly thrown into it, and covered by four back furrows, so forming a ridge over the manure; and this ridge being laid level with a light harrow, or with rakes, or if the soil be in fine tilth, by a light roller, will then be ready to receive the seed. As soon as the Carrots are plainly to be seen, they should be hoed and weeded; or the weeds will soon outstrip the Carrots (which are of very slow growth at first) and render their cleansing vastly more troublesome and laborious.—They should also be thinned, to stand single, and only from three to five inches apart in the rows; or the roots will be small, and cost much more time in handling and topping (cutting or wringing off the tops) at the time of harvesting them. The entire crop, too, will doubtless be smaller than when the plants are thinned as here recommended.
The Mangel Wurtzel. This plant yields a much more abundant crop than the Carrot; and at the same time contains, in the same quantity or weight of roots, a great deal more nourishment; whence it is natural to suppose that it requires a richer soil than Carrots. I have not made sufficient trials to enable me to express a decided opinion on the best mode of cultivating the Mangel Wurtzel; and will therefore lay before you the successful practice, on strong land, in the county of Essex, in England, as it is stated, from a recent English publication, by the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture.[4]
The Mangel Wurtzel is sometimes called the Great, or Improved Beet, and Root of Scarcity; but now, more generally, Mangel Wurtzel, its German name. The following is the account of its culture at Bedford, in Essex.
"It may be proper, in the first place, to state what is meant by strong land. The surface soil is loamy, and from four to twelve inches deep, upon a bed of strong clay mixed with gravel. It is too heavy, and generally too wet, in the winter, even for sheep to eat a crop of turnips on the ground; and although good turnips are raised upon it, it is always necessary to draw them for the sheep, stall-fed cattle, or cattle in the yards."
"In the middle, or latter end of the month of April, the furrows are set out with the plough, two feet apart, and double ploughed; that is, the plough returns on the [same] furrow to the point whence it set out, forming a ridge between each two furrows."
"Double ploughing with a common plough is preferable to single ploughing with a double mould board plough, because it affords a greater depth of loose earth than the double mould board plough would produce."
"In these furrows, the manure, which should be in a rotten state, is deposited, after the rate of six cubic yards to an acre."[5]
"The ridges are then split by the plough, going and returning the same way as before mentioned; leaving the manure immediately under the middle of the new ridges. A light roller is then passed along the ridges,[6] in the middle of which the seed is dibbled, so that the plants may receive all the benefit which can be derived from the manure."[7]
"The seed is deposited about an inch deep, whilst the moisture is fresh in the earth,[8] and covered by drawing a garden rake along the rows. After this, the light roller is again passed along the ridges, [to press the earth upon the seeds] and the work is finished."
"When the plants are about the size of a radish, they are hoed with a turnip hoe, leaving the plants in the row about twelve inches apart. If any of the seeds fail, and there happen not to be an even crop, the roots where they are too thick are drawn out before the hoeing takes place, and transplanted to fill up the vacant places, and ensure a full crop; which is always certain, inasmuch as 99 plants out of 100 thrive and do well. In transplanting, care is necessary to prevent the point of the root from turning upwards."
"The weeds, while the plants are young, are kept hoed; but after the head of the plant has once spread, no weed can live under its shade; and the expense of hoeing afterwards is trifling indeed."
"The whole of the crop is taken up in the month of November,[9] in dry weather. The tops are cut off near the crown of the plants, and the plants, when perfectly dry, are piled up in a shed, and covered with straw sufficiently thick to preserve them from the frost. They kept last year till the latter end of March, and they would have kept much longer."
"Where a field selected for a crop of Beet [the Mangel Wurtzel] happens to be in a foul state, the seed had better be sown in a garden, and the whole field planted with the young Beet, when of the size of a radish. This will give time for cleaning the ground, and fitting it for a crop; for although the Beets are destroyers of weeds, it is not meant to recommend sowing them on foul ground, or in any way to encourage a slovenly system of farming."
"The method of cultivating the Beet root, here recommended, is the same as that used in the cultivation of turnips, in Northumberland, and other parts of the North of England with this exception, that the rows there are 27 inches apart.—There may be reasons in the North for still preserving that space; but in Essex the effect of it, in the cultivation of the Beet root, would be, that instead of 48 tons per acre, 43 tons only would be obtained. Experience has proved, that the roots do not get to a larger size in rows three feet apart, than they do in rows two feet apart. It may therefore fairly be presumed, that they would not be larger, in rows twenty-seven inches apart; and if not larger, the weight of the crop, per acre, must be less, because the plants decrease in number as the rows increase in space."
To the preceding account of cultivating the Mangel Wurtzel, I will subjoin a few